


12 Steps

by Gedry



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drug Addiction, Family Issues, M/M, Overdosing, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 06:44:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12600620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gedry/pseuds/Gedry
Summary: The 12 Steps tell you to keep it simple, but Dean Winchester has never been good at keeping anything simple.  So, with the help and support of the core people in his life he’s giving sobriety his best shot, which even on a good day is a struggle.  But as he works at it he makes progress and starts to rediscover himself, and maybe find love with the new guy next door.





	12 Steps

**Author's Note:**

> I'm moving my work very slowly over from LiveJournal. Very Slowly.

 

**Title:** 12 Steps **Author:** Gedry **Pairings:** Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby AU **Rating:** NC-17 **Word Count:** 33032 **Disclaimer:** These characters do not belong to me. I am making no profit from this fanfiction. 

**Beta:** [dragonmage86](http://dragonmage86.livejournal.com/)

**Alpha:** [moonofblindness](http://moonofblindness.livejournal.com/) **Spoilers:** None **Warnings:** mentions of past drug use, mentions of parental neglect. **Summary:** The 12 Steps tell you to keep it simple, but Dean Winchester has never been good at keeping anything simple.So, with the help and support of the core people in his life he’s giving sobriety his best shot, which even on a good day is a struggle.But as he works at it he makes progress and starts to rediscover himself, and maybe find love with the new guy next door. 

12 Steps  
   
 **How It Works**  
  
 **1\. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.**  
   
Dean hears the machines beeping before he opens his eyes. He takes a breath and his chest hurts like hell.  
   
 _Guess that means I’m not dead._  
   
He tries to swallow, his throat hurts, and the machines all go crazy. By the time his room is full of nurses Dean figures he must have pushed it pretty far this time.   
   
He fades in and out of the conversation. Something about being unconscious for three days and needing chest compressions in the ambulance. He can tell they pumped his stomach. His hands are still stained from the charcoal they used. Dean responds to their questions as best he can and fades back into unconsciousness as soon as they let him. He’s just so tired.   
   
He dreams about driving the Impala. With his dad in the passenger seat drunk and passed out and his little brother in the back buried under blankets. In the dream he’s just barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel and it’s snowing outside. Dean thinks maybe it’s not a dream but a memory. There’s so much he’s tried to forget.   
   
“Mr. Winchester? Mr. Winchester. MR. WINCHESTER!”   
   
Dean cracks open his eyes and sees a lady wearing a suit in the doorway. Not a nurse then, they wear uniforms. “Lady, Mr. Winchester is my dad and I’m sleeping here. What do you want?” he grunts  
   
“It’s time for group,” she says, and her voice leaves no reason for him to doubt her meaning.   
   
“No fucking way,” he snaps back, and rolls over until his back is to the door.  
   
“Dean, look—” She says it like he’s a willing participant in this conversation. “You can either come to group or not. But if you stay in bed you’re just going to be here longer. You can’t leave until you finish your psychiatric evaluation.”  
   
Dean chuckles until the pain in his chest makes him stop. “Honey, if you think a psych eval is going to help me get out of here then you haven’t worked here very long.”  
   
 He stays in his room until Sammy calls. He’s screaming into the phone about how pissed he is at Dean and how scared he was. It’s not helpful. Dean wants to get drunk, or shoot up, maybe find some coke—anything to make him feel less like shit. Sam runs out of steam after about five minutes. Dean listens to him breathe into the phone until Sam mutters, “I liked you better when you were locked up Dean. At least then you were sober and I knew where you were.”   
   
Dean slams the phone down and stalks to the nurse’s station. He bangs on the glass and yells, “I need some Ativan. Now.” The fucking social worker smiles at him all bright and cheery and tells him, “You want your Ativan, come to group and you can have it.”   
   
God, he hates that bitch.   
   
He hates groups. This is not Dean’s first time in treatment. He sits in his hospital-issue pajamas with all the other little mental patients on the unit, and grinds his teeth down as hard as he can to keep from exploding. His legs shake, his hands shake, he still nauseous all the time. He can almost feel the bugs crawling up under his skin. Dean’s pretty sure he might make it through the group if the floor would just stop moving. Fuck—he needs to get high so bad right now. He grinds through his Feeling for the Day and has never been more grateful for the hospital lunch special that breaks up group time. He eats it all, too, knowing in a half hour he’ll be puking it all back up anyway.   
   
****  
   
It takes fourteen days for Dean to not feel like he is going to die every waking minute. He’s starting to think more clearly, and the floor stopped moving about three days ago. The social workers tell him they think he needs residential treatment for his drug use. Dean stares at them blankly, because the hell he is going from here to another lock down unit: he just got out of jail four months ago. They tell him it doesn’t matter what he wants—He’s being held involuntarily and until they say he can go, he’s not allowed to leave. The medical intern uses the term ‘danger to yourself or others.’   
   
Well, Dean’s never been one to disappoint somebody. The guy ducks the chair Dean throws at him but he gets in a few good punches before they call in the sedation team. That Haldol packs a hell of a punch. They schedule him for discharge a week later, say they are going to step him down to a less restrictive unit for continued care.   
   
“How long?” he asks the suit wearing bitch responsible for his case.  
   
“30 days. That’s the course of treatment there. Then outpatient counseling,” she answers, her voice carefully neutral, and Dean is so tired of being treated like a wild animal ready to attack.   
   
“I’m not fucking going to outpatient. You told me I had to do residential, not that,” Dean states.  
   
“We can’t control anything past the 30 day stay. But your probation officer says you’re going to do outpatient or go back to jail. I encourage you to consider your options.” She says it like she means it, like she really thinks counseling or jail are his only choices. She’s an idiot.   
   
They transport him in the back of a sheriff’s car in handcuffs. It’s a nice drive. Dean won’t ever admit it, but he didn’t even know they were back in Virginia until the deputy told him so. Last thing he remembers clearly is Vermont. It doesn’t matter anyway– at least he didn’t earn himself a probation violation….yet.  
   
The building is ratty as hell. Dean stumbles out of the car and into the front door of the place looking for something other than crumbling brick and partially torn up floors. He answers one hundred fifty questions from the nursing staff before they let him out of the cuffs and agree that he is medically stable. He gets one phone call, so for laughs he calls Sam.  
   
“Dude, where are you?” Sam asks.  
   
 “Some inpatient treatment unit for drug addicts. They won’t let me go until I finish treatment,” Dean mumbles out.  
   
Sam takes a deep breath before he says, “Sounds like where you need to be, man. Dean, please, let them help you.”  
   
Dean opens his mouth to say some kind of smart-ass response, but he can hear the hurt in his brother’s voice. Plus, Dean’s been thinking he doesn’t exactly have anything to get back to. He walked out of the hospital with nothing. He’s still wearing the hospital pajamas—Turns out they had to cut off his clothes when he came in the ER. He’s got not clothing, no ID, no job, no home, no friends.   
   
 _What am I in such a hurry to get back to?_  
   
****  
   
It’s a question he ponders for most of his first week. They spend all freakin’ day in groups or individual counseling. He hates it. Half the fucking time Dean can’t even identify how he feels, much less is he willing to actually tell them the truth about it. He’s grateful when he gets assigned to the kitchen. The lady that runs it is scary as hell, but at least he can get out of the building by helping her at the store.   
   
Missouri Mosely is no joke. She is bossy, blunt, and rigid in the way she likes things done. She takes one look at Dean and says, “You ever worked in a kitchen like this before?”  
   
Dean shrugs. “I worked in the kitchen detail while I was locked up.” It was a pretty good experience, too.  
   
She scrunches up her face in distaste and says, “Boy, forget all that. I’m gonna have to teach you the right way to run a kitchen.”   
   
She works his ass off. Dean is up at five in the morning getting food ready and hits the bed right at curfew. She yells at him, shoves him around, and drags him everywhere. When she’s not there Dean spends half his time threatening the other clients to keep them out of the food. No way in hell is she going to come in there and blame him for something being missing. He’s worn out and exhausted, but he loves every minute of it. Dean feels useful for the first time in a long while.   
   
Sam brings John along with him for visitation. Dean feels his whole body jerk with shock when he sees his father. Sam is looking good, says college is going well and that he hopes to see Dean over break. Dean’s not paying much attention, his whole being focused on the older man sitting beside him. His dad is stoned. Dean knows it just as surely as he knows his dad still has shit on him. When they get ready to leave his dad says, “Sammy, give me a minute alone with Dean, will you?”   
   
Sam’s eyes go wide and he gives Dean a slow shake of his head as he backs away. He’s not stupid: Dad probably offered Sam some of his stash on the way there. Sam doesn’t really give a shit about that kind of stuff. Dean’s never been able to turn it down.   
   
As soon as Sam’s out of sight he’s sliding a baggy into Dean’s pocket and squeezing his arm tight. “Something to get you through this, son. I know it’s hard, but you can get out of here soon and forget about all this crap. Stay strong.” His breath reeks of whiskey, and Dean doesn’t think he takes another breath until he walks him to the door.  
   
He doesn’t even look in his jacket pocket that night. He’s too scared to see what his dad brought him. Dean wants it so bad. If he sees it, he’s going to use it, and he’s just starting to think he might be able to do this sober thing. He’s just starting to think his life maybe could be better. He doesn’t want to fuck it up by getting high now.  
   
But he does fuck Ruby, one of the female clients, up against the dryer in the laundry room. It’s not the high he was looking for, but it does make him forget for a while. When it’s over he feels just as guilty as if he had shot up.   
   
 _Mission_ _accomplished._  
   
“Boy, you scrub that pan any harder and you’ll rub the handle right off.” Missouri is only half joking when she says it. She’s a smart lady and she knows something is up. Dean’s spent the morning messing up every dish he’s put together and then yelling at one of the new guys for not knowing where stuff is. He’s ready to lose it, the drugs burning a hole in his unchecked pocket.   
   
She looks at him for a long time in silence then puts her hand on his arm and says to the rest of the crew, “Get out.”  
   
They run for cover. Dean ends up sitting on a pallet of cans next to the broken down office chair she has in the corner. She calls it her office. “What’s eating you?” It’s not really a question, more of a command.  
   
Dean shifts and tries not to rock back and forth. He’s going to get kicked out of here and then go back to jail. He’s only a week away from finishing, too. “Nothing.”   
   
“Dean, something is wrong with you, and you’re going to tell me what it is, right now.” Missouri sounds so certain.  
   
He looks at her and shakes his head. She takes a deep breath and says, “Boy, I know those instincts you have are telling you to keep your mouth shut right now. But I need you to believe me when I tell you that you’re sick and your instincts are wrong. You just need to do everything they’re telling you not to do. Now let me help you.”   
   
Dean snorts—but in the end, he doesn’t have anything left so he has nothing to lose. He takes the baggy out of his pocket and drops it on the desk. “My dad slipped me this yesterday during visitation. I didn’t use any—you can test me, I’ll be clean.”   
   
She looks at the bag and then back up at him. “And?” she says, unimpressed.  
   
“Fuck, Missouri!” Dean yells. “Isn’t that enough?”  
   
“Not if that’s not all your hiding,” she states, leaning back in her chair.  
   
“I fucked Ruby in the laundry room last night.” Dean says it directly to the shelf full of dishes.   
   
Missouri heaves herself up from the chair and grabs the baggy off her desk. Dean hears her mutter as she walks out of the kitchen. “Damn boy, I thought you had better taste than that.”  
   
He gets banned from talking to any of the female clients ever again, and they extend his stay by another month. Dean’s grateful: it’s better than jail or being on the street. Ruby slips him her phone number when she gets out and Dean hands it right over to Missouri when she holds out her hand for it.   
   
They don’t let Sam or Dad come back for visitation. Dean puts up a fight for his brother but gets told he is co-dependant and enmeshed. He’s not entirely sure what those words mean, but when his counselor tells him he wouldn’t be so upset about it if they weren’t right, then he lets it go. God, he hates counselors so much.  
   
When he leaves for the halfway house and outpatient counseling, the last thing Missouri says to him is, “Maybe you need to stop worrying about what you’re in a hurry to get to, and spend more time thinking about what it is you’re running from.”   
   
****  
   
Pamela Barnes is not what Dean thought his counselor was going to be like. She’s sassy, ballsy, and sees right through his bullshit. He doesn’t even make it through the intake without her saying, “Wow, you’re lying and you don’t even know it, do you?”  
   
 _Ok so I am—but still…_  
   
“Let’s try again,” she says. “Tell me about how you grew up.”  
   
 Dean takes a deep breath. He remembers what Missouri told him about his instincts. Every single one of the screaming for Dean to lie, lie, lie. But Dean’s tired and sick: really sick, maybe sicker even than he realizes he is right now. He needs help, and if the last three months have taught him nothing else, they have taught him that he isn’t ready to lie down and die. This is his second chance; he’s going to try and make the best of it.   
   
“My mom died when my little brother was born. Sam’s four years younger than me. I don’t remember much before that. We traveled a lot. My dad didn’t like being in one place too long.” Dean hesitates.  
   
“Why not?” Pam prompts.  
   
“He always said it was because he wanted us to see the world.” Dean remembers those slurred comments on how great the next place would be as Dean packed up the car and Sammy for the next trip out.  
   
“What do you really think that was about?”   
   
Dean grips the arms of the chair he’s sitting in, hard, and swallows. He’s not sure he’s going to do this until he hears himself say, “I think my dad is a fucking drunk. A drunk and an addict and he would take us to these shit-hole places and ditch us for weeks sometimes—then show up in the middle of the night and drag us out of bed and on to the next place. We never had enough food, we never had enough money and he was never around. I spent most of my time taking care of Sammy only for him to come home and say it wasn’t good enough and beat my ass.”   
   
 “So you supported yourself and your brother while he was gone?” She’s digging and he knows it.  
   
“Yeah.” Dean’s response is clipped.  
   
“How? What did you do?”   
   
“Anything and everything I had to do.” Dean looks her right in the eye. He’s not going ever be ashamed of making sure his brother had food to eat and a place to sleep no matter what he had to do to get it—angry that he was put in that position, absolutely, but guilty never.   
   
“What’s your drug of choice?”   
   
“Whatever I can get. But I usually start drinking and wind my way around to everything else. If you’re asking for my top three: its alcohol, coke, and if I can’t get that then heroin.” Dean’s voice is steady but he’s thinking about the track marks on his arms.  
   
“Tell me about when you started using.”  
   
“Dad gave me my first drink when I was ten. I used to sneak his stuff after that. When I got around fifteen he started letting me drink with him. I did that until I could buy my own stuff. A girl I was dating in high-school turned me onto coke when I was seventeen. I started shooting up heroin in my mid twenties. Got hooked on that with a guy I was fucking around with.” Dean doesn’t guess his sexual preference really matters in the bigger scheme of things.   
   
“Explain your use pattern to me.” Pam’s taking notes.  
   
“When I was drinking I drank everyday. I used coke two or three times a week. I shot up like a couple of times a month at first, but by the end I was doing it everyday or I got sick. I use until the money is gone and people quit giving it to me.”   
   
 “Tell me about how you got here.”  
   
Dean laughs. “It’s a long story. Sammy and I were doing a side business for dad three years ago. Moving some drugs from one side of the state to the other. That’s the family business—drug transportation. We got picked up speeding through some back-hills redneck town and they thought I was drunk driving. Which, you know, I was.” Dean sighs and shifts in his seat. “They searched the car and found the dope. Sammy had a scholarship to Stanford. He had plans. I took the heat for the whole thing and got ordered to treatment and probation.”   
   
She smiles and tips her head. “That’s not how you ended up here. That was three years ago.”  
   
Dean nods. “Yeah, I was too stupid to stop using and bombed out of the treatment program. I ended up taking my felony and served two years and three months. When I got out my dad picked me up at the jail, and in like a week I was back at it with him. A couple of months after that I got involved with this girl and was crazy about her. When Cassie left me I lost it—hit the streets and woke up in a hospital. I overdosed and they say my heart stopped. Anyway… I got court ordered to residential treatment for a month and then my PO said I had to come here.”   
   
He can feel his stomach rolling and twisting. Dean’s never been big on self disclosure. He’s let a lot fly in the last hour and he’s ready to go. Pam gives him the treatment schedule and he flops into bed that night looking at it.  
   
 _Ok. Only thirty six more weeks._  
   
   
 **2\. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.**  
  
Counseling sucks ass. Pam says he’s supposed to hate it. She says when he starts to think it’s fun it means he doesn’t need to go anymore. Dean’s tired of waiting to enjoy it.    Dean’s been plowing through NA meetings every day and twice on Saturdays. He agreed to do ninety in ninety and so far he’s managed it pretty well.   
   
The meetings help. He doesn’t say much—hell, he doesn’t say anything at all really—but after the first 20 meetings Dean does get up to get a white key tag. He sits through the guys saying that it’s the most important tag because it reminds them that they can’t focus too much on the future. Just for today. Dean figures he’s okay with today. It’s the past he can’t deal with and the future he’s afraid of. He carries that tag in his pocket for a week before finally slipping it on his key-ring.  
   
He’s ten weeks into the thirty-six week program when he starts stalking Bobby Singer. Ok, maybe stalking is a bad term for it. Bobby Singer’s been sober for 19 years. He’s made it sober through his wife dying, a bout of colon cancer, and seven years of incarceration for selling drugs to an informant. Bobby’s stone-cold honest and grumpy as hell. He almost never cracks a smile, and if someone gets out of line in the meeting he doesn't hesitate to tell them to shut the hell up.  
   
He scares the hell out of Dean.  
   
Dean knows he needs a sponsor. Anyone that he's met with any kind of long-term clean-time has one. He's getting all kinds of crap about it from Pam.   
   
"Sponsor yet?"  
   
"No, and before you start riding my ass about it I have someone in mind—I just haven't asked him yet." Dean resists the urge to squirm in his seat. He knows what's coming.  
   
"Why not?"  
   
Dean takes a deep breath and leans his head back against the chair. He can distantly feel his leg shaking a hundred miles a minute when he replies, "What if he turns me down?"   
   
"You're afraid of rejection."   
   
"I'm not afraid of anything." Dean smiles his brightest smile at her. She stares at him nonplussed. "I don't know what to do with rejection," he sighs.  
   
"If you never let anyone in, then they can't hurt you."   
   
He doesn't know what to say to that. It makes perfect sense to him.   
   
Dean follows Bobby Singer to every meeting the guy goes to for a week and a half before he finally gets up the nerve to approach him. He takes a deep breath and sidles up to him at the coffee pot before a meeting one Thursday.  
   
"I need a sponsor," Dean says firmly.  
   
Bobby stares him up and down before replying, "That's nice, kid."   
   
Dean can feel the flush crawling up his neck but damn if he's going to run now: it's too late. He sucks it up and says, "I'm trying to ask you if you want to be my sponsor."  
   
Bobby narrows his eyes. "Are you trying to ask me, or are you askin' me?"  
   
Dean wants to slam his face down onto the table top. He grits his teeth and says, "I'm asking."  
   
Bobby chuckles. "Boy, do you do everything the hard way?”  
   
Dean thinks about it for a minute, then responds with, “Yeah. I pretty much do.”  
   
Bobby fills up his coffee cup and grabs a doughnut. Before he walks away he looks back over his shoulder and says, “Well, come on then, you look like you need all the help you can get.”  
   
Bobby has rules for his sponsors. He’s rigid about them, too. Dean has to go to at least one meeting every day. No problem for Dean, he’s already doing that. He has to check in with Bobby no less than every other day for the first six months and Bobby wants to lay eyes on him at minimum three times a week. If anything happens that messes up the schedule Dean has to call immediately.  
   
Bobby gives him homework.   
   
It fills up the time. He also tells Dean that he has to find a job. After three weeks of solid looking Dean drops off the list of all the places he has applied to—and been turned down from—to Bobby at the salvage yard. There’s a little bit of everything in there—it goes from veterinary offices to fast food places.  Bobby looks it over and asks, “What are you willing to do?”  
   
Dean’s response is immediate. “Anything it takes.”   
   
Bobby hires him on at the salvage yard. Dean’s not sure he even needed the help and the pay is crap, but it’s better than the nothing he was making before, and Bobby was clear when he said, “If you hate it then find something else and quit, but at least this way you got work history.”  
   
Dean works hard not to disappoint him—so hard that Bobby tells him one day, “I’m not your daddy, you idjit.”   
   
Dean laughs. “I got enough problems in that department, Bobby.”  
   
****  
   
Dean meets Lisa in a meeting. She’s pretty and flirty and has been sober for less than a month. She’s perfect. Dean falls head over heels for her, and for her son, Ben. In three weeks he’s moved out of the halfway house and into her place. They do everything together. Dean knows he talks about her all the time.  
   
Bobby finally tells him one night, “Son, I’m gonna let you do this one on your own. But if you make it through this maybe next time you’ll believe me when I tell you that two sickies don’t make a well-y.”   
   
It’s funny, that’s pretty much the same thing that Pam said.  
   
“What is it about Lisa that makes her so attractive to you?”  ~~~~  
  
“I don’t know.” Dean is squirming: in his world you don’t discuss with a woman why you think another woman is hot. “She’s nice and I feel good being around her.”  
   
“What about being around her makes you feel good?’ Pam’s digging and he hates that.  
   
“She likes me, she doesn’t judge me, she’s a good mom…” Dean frankly hasn’t thought about it before.  
   
Pam nods.”You feel accepted by her.”  
   
Dean sighs. “Yeah. She’s like me so she understands.”   
   
“Understands addiction?”  ~~~~  
  
“Because she’s in recovery, too.”  
   
“You feel accepted by her and you have similar experiences.” Pam does this thing with her pen that shows Dean she’s about to drop a bomb on him. “What’s your back up plan for if something goes wrong?”  
   
“What could go wrong?” Dean’s confused.  
   
Pam leans forward in her chair and looks him in the eye before saying, “Dean, I’m going to give you a scenario and you tell me what could go wrong. You’re an addict that has only been clean close to six months, he’s on probation, he has a lot of jail time hanging over his head, he’s homeless. He meets a cute little woman at a meeting one night and she’s been sober less than a month, she’s not in treatment, she doesn’t have a sponsor. He moves in with her three weeks later. Now tell me what could go wrong here.”  
   
Dean rolls his eyes and thunks his head against his seat. “You think I fucked up here, don’t you?”   
   
 “I think next time we need to start talking about your relationship history.”   
   
 _Oh hell._  
   
****  
   
Two weeks later Dean is wishing he had a back up plan. Lisa is clingy and needy and emotional. Half the time they are fighting Dean’s not even sure what they are fighting about. She throws him out one night, then yells at him for not coming home the next. She stops going to meetings saying that she doesn’t think they need them. Dean finds himself squirming and watching the clock while people are talking for the first time. Bobby threatens to fire him if he shows up late one more time.   
   
Dean is stressed and anxious. After a particularly stellar phone call from his very drunk father one night—accusing Dean of being a bad son and not loving him and abandoning him when he knows he needs Dean to help him—Dean finds himself in the beer isle of the local gas station.   
   
His palms are sweaty, his heart is pounding, and his hand is on the case door. Dean presses his face to the cool glass and takes a deep breath, trying not to vomit when the cashier says, “Sir, can I help you?”  
   
The kid’s young, maybe seventeen. Dean says, “I need you to dial a number for me and tell the guy who answers to come pick me up _now_.”  
   
Bobby gets there in ten minutes even though it’s the middle of the night. He puts Dean in the car and drives him back to his place. All he says about it is, “Next time you wanna jump into a relationship, you do it my way.”   
   
Dean can’t help but agree.   
   
Bobby goes with him to get his stuff out of Lisa’s house. Dean has shed his fair share of tears over this relationship. He’s going to miss Ben. Lisa is pissed and Dean can’t blame her. He knows he’s giving her the ‘It’s not you it’s me’ talk. But it’s true. Dean’s starting to get that he’s pretty messed up still, even though he‘s better than he was.   
   
Sam takes it all in stride. He calls Dean every Sunday and for the first time since they were kids Dean is starting to feel like he has his brother back. He tells Sam about everything except the call from Dad. Their relationship is strained enough. Sam ends the call with a quiet, ‘I love you, man.’   
   
Dean thinks that maybe this feeling in his chest might be hope.   
   
 **3\. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.**  
   
 “Tell me about your relationship history.”  
   
Dean almost throws up. “Can we not talk about this?”   
   
Pam stares at him until he follows up with, “Well, you know about Lisa and Cassie. Other than that I don’t really have a history of anything serious. I’ve got some people that I had a lot of fun with. We moved around so much when I was growing up that I never bothered really getting close to anyone.”  
   
“So you’re telling me you spent most of your life celibate?” She says it so dryly and Dean knows she is yanking his chain.   
   
“Fuck no,” Dean laughs. “I’ve been significantly less than celibate.”  
   
“Tell me about it.” Pam’s not letting up.  
   
“Ummm,” Dean’s blushing. He hesitates and then blurts out, “I had sex for the first time when I was fifteen behind a grocery store with some girl. We were just passing through —hell, we were always just passing through.”  
   
He looks up and Pam stares back him with her eyebrows raised. He heaves a sigh and decides to just answer the question. “I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve slept with. Really, I just don’t know. Having sex was never a big deal to me. It’s fun and easy and when it’s over then it’s just over. No strings attached. It’s not a big deal.”  
   
“You get your needs met but no intimacy.”  
   
“I guess,” Dean mutters. “I’m not really good with letting people get close to me.”  
   
“You don’t consider sex as people being close to you.”   
   
Dean thinks about it for minute. He’s never really looked at it that way. “I guess not.”  
   
“You always used protection?”  ~~~~  
  
Dean shrugs uncomfortably. “No.”   
   
“Ever been tested?”   
   
“No.”   
   
Pam doesn’t say anything else about it and Dean knows she won’t. It’s the way she works—she’ll let him turn it over in his head for a while and drive himself crazy with it before she brings it up again, maybe like two week from now or so.   
   
It’s an effective strategy—Dean drives himself nuts. He knows he has some seriously high-risk behaviors. Hell, he’s shot up and he’s sure shared needles with at least one, if not ten, people. Bobby finally just drops him off at the health department and tells him to just suck it up and find out.   
   
Dean considers himself lucky in the end. He’s Hep C positive but at least he doesn’t have HIV. He does some research and finds out the treatment options. It looks grueling but the doctor he speaks to says he seems like a good candidate for treatment. This is assuming he can afford to pay for it. Right now he can’t.   
   
Sobriety is a struggle sometimes. There are days when Dean wants to shoot up so badly that he dreams about it at night, wakes up covered in sweat with his stomach rolling in his belly. He remembers vividly the feel of the needle sliding in and the wave of euphoria when he pushes the plunger down.   
   
Sometimes he has to check his wallet and make sure his money is still there. It just all seems so real.   
   
 Bobby and Pam both tell him it’s normal. Sometimes if it weren’t for them Dean would think he had lost his mind.   
   
****  
   
He decides to go to Sam’s undergraduate graduation after a lot of talking to Pam and Bobby about it. They all know his dad is going to be there and traveling means Dean is on his own as far as being able to reach out to his support system.   
   
His dad is a huge trigger and Dean’s scared as hell, but he owes it to Sammy.   
   
The look Sam gives him the first time he sees Dean makes the flight on the airplane and the curse of dealing with dad worth it.   
   
Sam drags him off the ground in a huge bear hug and blubbers out, “You look great, Dean.”  
   
Dean hangs onto the hug a little longer than probably normal, but it feels too good to bask in the joy of someone being proud of him for the first time in what feels like forever.   
   
Dean picks up his nine-month key-tag in a meeting with Sam that night. He’s a little overdue but he wanted his brother to see him do it. Sam, the gigantic girl that he is, cries. Dean takes his brother out for a late dinner after that and calls Bobby to check in.   
   
Sam hesitates over his French fries and then says, “Dad’s coming tomorrow.”  
   
 “I know,” he replies tersely.  
   
Sam swallows and then pokes Dean in the arm with his fork. “Dad is in shitty shape Dean. I don’t want him messing you up. If you want me to tell him to leave you just say the word and he’s gone, okay?”  
   
Dean’s touched by his brother’s level of care for him. He knows Sam really will make their dad leave. “Thanks Sammy, but I need to figure out how to handle Dad on my own, too.”  
   
 Dean’s not expecting their dad to look like he’s been on a three-year bender: but then, Dean thinks he probably has. It only takes fifteen minutes for him to piss Sam off. Dean gets stuck in the middle trying to negotiate his father sobering up a little bit before going to the ceremony. Dad’s in one of those moods where he says he’s sober and fuck them for thinking he’s not.  
   
Sam storms off and Dad passes out before they even leave to go see Sam walk. Dean stares at his father a long time before he wanders out of the apartment and stares at the broken down, beat up Impala that was basically their home growing up.   
   
 _I guess Dad took as good a care of you as he took of us._  
   
Dean pats her gently and fights back the tears. He sits down on her hood and finally breaks down.  
   
“Ok, so I don’t know how to do this because I’ve never prayed before. But if there is someone up there or out there that’s paying attention to me…I need some help.” Dean swallows and shrugs off the thought that he is being an idiot. He looks around to make sure no one can hear him before he continues, “My dad’s a mess, and I’m a mess, and I don’t want to end up like my dad. So if you could maybe help me out a little here I would really appreciate it. I’m not asking for anything specific but, I’m going to leave now and go watch my little brother graduate. It would be really awesome if things were better when we get back, because I’m hanging by a thread here and could really use some help.” He stops for a second and repeats, “I need some help.”  
   
Dean claps so hard for Sam his hands hurt. They go out for dinner and Sam goes with him to another meeting. When they get back to his apartment their dad’s gone and the place is a mess. Sam says he went through his drawers and stole some of his money. When Dean drops off to sleep that night on Sam’s couch, he whispers quietly, “Thank you.”  
   
He also starts thinking maybe it was sign. Dean and Sam have their first adult, sober, meaningful conversation the morning before Dean leaves.  
   
“I think I need to stop talking to Dad for a while,” Dean blurts out over breakfast.  
   
Sam swallows his toast and looks at Dean for a long time before he says, “Ok. I think you’re right. What can I do to help?”  
   
Dean flushes at the swell of relief that flows through him. “Sammy, thanks, man.”  
   
“Dean, you’re my brother, you raised me. If you need my help with anything, you’ve got it. You saved my life that night when you told the cops I had no idea what was going on. I’m never going to forget that.” Sam is gripping his fork so hard Dean thinks it’s bending.   
   
“If I hadn’t gone to jail, Sam, I would have ended up just like dad. Don’t feel bad about it. I made my choices and I think I’m getting better. It’s just taking me a while because I have to do everything the hard way.” Dean smiles at his brother and Sam smiles back.   
   
“What about Dad?”  ~~~~  
  
Dean sighs “I’m going to change my number when I get home. I’ll call you with the new one. Please just don’t give it to Dad. I can’t be around him, Sammy…when I am I want to use.”   
   
Dean thinks about it on the flight home and realizes that more and more often he has to ask for help and admit he’s lost. All these things he was raised to never do. Things he was taught would make him weak.   
   
He tells Bobby that he’s planning to move out on his own. Bobby mutters, “’Bout damn time,” but cuffs the back of Dean’s neck with gentle affection.  
   
He does some research and looks at the money he’s saved up from living with Bobby. He ends up buying a beat up old house down the street from the salvage yard. It’s torn up and broken down, and when Dean looks at it all he sees is the answer to the question Pam has been asking him for a month.  
   
“What are you doing with all your free time?” she says again at their next session.  
   
Dean beams and responds, “I’m fixing up my house.”  
   
He gives his last urine screen at the probation office and has finally paid back all his restitution. The day he gets the papers that say he is off probation, he goes straight to Pam’s office and demands that she follow up on something she told him when he first started treatment.   
   
“You told me if I made it off probation you would do a cartwheel,” he says as he holds out the papers. “I’m calling your bluff.”  
   
Pam looks them over and rolls her eyes. As they pass the front desk he hears her tell the office manager, “Thank God I wore pants today.”   
   
Next thing he knows they’re out in the parking lot of the building and Pam is lining up for a cartwheel. Dean’s stunned—he never thought she would actually do it. He laughs so hard he almost falls over when she goes through with it. But then she stands up and says to him, “Come on Dean. We’re in this together. I’m not going to be out here doing cartwheels on my own.”  
   
Everyone is watching them—people have come out of their offices and piled into the small parking lot. Dean looks around and thinks about bolting. No way is this happening. Pam leans over and says, “What are you waiting for?”   
   
Dean’s never done a cartwheel in his life. By the third one he thinks he might be getting the hang of it.   
   
 _Life is really weird sometimes._  
   
****  
   
Dean’s been avoiding dating. At least, dating the way he knows Pam and Bobby think of it. He’s decided to take a break from women—too many complications. Men, on the other hand, seem easy. He’s got a few friends that he spends some time with, and if some of that time involves sex it’s no big deal. Nobody is getting hurt and everyone knows that Dean has a no strings attached policy.   
   
Until two of his fuck-buddies have a disagreement in the parking lot of the church the meeting is being held in. While Dean is standing there watching these two grown men roll around in the dirt and scream at each other Bobby walks up behind him and says, “Son, we gotta talk.”  
   
Dean ends up doing a relationship inventory for Bobby and, just for extra added embarrassment, Bobby makes him show it to Pam.   Dean’s horrified that after Bobby makes him regurgitate every encounter he can remember that he’s filled up half a notebook worth of people and is pretty sure he left a bunch out.     
   
Bobby and Pam have come to the same conclusion.  
   
“You need to take a break,” Pam tells him.  
   
“What do you mean when you say ‘break’?”   
   
“I want you to lay off pursuing intimacy of any kind for a year.” Pam says it like this is even possible.  
   
Dean howls with laughter until he sees that she’s not smiling. “Are you fucking kidding me?”   
   
“No, Dean, I’m serious. You need time to sort yourself out and figure out why you can be physical with someone but can’t be committed and open with them.”   
   
“A year is too long.”   
   
“Are you saying you can’t do it?” Pam is baiting him and he knows it.  
   
Dean never could back down from a challenge. “Ok, so a year of celibacy. Can I still jack off?”  
   
He knows he is being lewd—he’s trying to get a reaction out of her. It’s a mistake. She smiles gently at him before saying, “Of course you can—masturbation is an important part of an adult life. It’s normal to have needs and self-fulfillment is appropriate given the right circumstances. Just make sure you’re alone and that you aren’t offending anyone.”  
   
Dean is blushing so hard he’s sure his face is apple colored. “Damn, Pam, did you have to put it that way?”  
   
She laughs. “Backfired on you didn’t it?”  
   
 **4\. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.**  
   
Dean’s ripping the siding off the outside of the back of his house when the moving van pulls up next door. He’s been curious about who was moving in there since the sold sign went up less than a month ago. Whoever it is will be Dean’s only neighbor.  
   
This kid that hops out of the passenger side of the car in front of the house looks to be about ten years old. He flies up to the side door and stands there waiting for the other person in the car. Dean’s hauling part of the siding around front to drop it off at the curb when the guy driving the car gets out. It only takes a minute for Dean to know he’s in trouble.   
   
The guy is gorgeous. Brown hair and big blue eyes, he’s thin and toned and has such a serious face. Dean trips over the curb and falls into the pile of debris from his house.  
   
 _Smooth move, idiot._  
   
He’s only three months into his agreement of celibacy. He’s so screwed. Dean’s only hope is that the guy has a kid so hopefully he’ll be straight and Dean can just eyeball him from afar.   
   
Dean hauls himself up and brushes off his hands. He goes over to the fence that separates the two properties and waves to the guy as he walks across the lawn. The guy comes over.  
   
“Hi,” Dean says as he holds out his hand. “I’m Dean Winchester. I guess we’re neighbors.”   
   
The other guy gives his hand a firm shake and rumbles out, “Nice to meet you. I’m Castiel Novack, the kid over there is my nephew, Jesse.”   
   
Dean’s not sure if he should be relieved or horrified that the kid’s not his son.   
   
He shakes himself away from the thought and his body’s reaction to the other man’s gravelly voice. “Do you need some help moving in?” he offers.  
   
Castiel looks startled for second. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”  
   
“You’re not, I’m offering,” Dean says, and he is walking around the fence before Castiel has time to say no.   
   
“Thank you.”   
   
Dean smiles at him. “No problem. I could use a break from working on my place.”   
   
Castiel looks back at Dean’s house and the pile of crap out in front of it. “You’ve been really busy since I came to look at this place.”   
   
Dean looks over his shoulder at his house and his mess. “Yeah, I’m trying to fix it up.”   
   
Castiel laughs. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”  
   
Dean chuckles. “Neither do I.”  
   
Jesse is friendly but distant. He picks out his room and quietly helps haul stuff in from the moving van. Dean and Castiel haul in the boxes and furniture until they realize that there is no way they can get some of the stuff up the steps on their own. Castiel looks defeated. “I had family back in Florida that helped us pack it. Never thought about getting it off the truck. I’ve been a little stressed.”  
   
Dean shrugs and makes a few calls on his cell phone. Twenty minutes later a truck of guys from Dean’s home meeting show up and they haul the rest of the crap in and up the steps.   
   
Castiel is grateful and he offers to pay them. One hard look from Dean and the guys brush him off and tell Dean they’ll see him tonight.   
   
“Thank you again. I couldn’t have done this without your help.”   
   
“No problem—what are neighbors for?” Dean strolls back to his house that night feeling like he’s walking on air.   
   
****  
   
They are friendly in a distant sort of way. Castiel seems pretty private and Dean is torn between wanting to be nice and trying to keep his hands to himself. It’s hard. Restraint has never been an attribute that Dean was particularly fond of. He’s used to rushing into everything at one hundred miles per hour and never looking back at the mess he has left behind him.   
   
It’s one of the things he is learning about himself.   
   
Turns out a lot of the stuff he is learning he really doesn’t like.   
   
****  
   
Dean actually completes the outpatient program and for the hell of it goes to the aftercare group too. It’s been a month since he last saw Pam and he misses her. They’re closing session was as touchy feel as Dean is willing to get with anyone.   
   
“Who am I going to talk to about all my messed up shit now?” He’d joked.  
   
Pam smiled at him. “Dean, you have a support system, you have a little bit of common sense—there’s nothing else for me to do with you. All the rest of this stuff you can do without me. You just have to want it bad enough.”  
   
Dean thought about that for minute. He wants that to be true.   
   
“Well since you’re not my therapist anymore—how about a date?” he offered with a big smile.   
   
Pam rolled her eyes and told him to get out of her office.   
   
He spends a lot of his time with Bobby. Thus far Bobby has ended up being the closest thing to a counselor that he’s got. Too bad he doesn’t look as nice as Pam. He’s just as blunt though.  
   
“Slip and fall on anyone with your dick yet, idjit?” Bobby springs this question over coffee one morning.  
   
Dean chokes and then gasps out, “Damn, Bobby, what the hell?”  
   
He wants to be annoyed, but to tell the truth he’s been tempted. Dean’s not used to denying himself anything and not pursuing someone means he spends a lot of his free time with just himself. That means he spends a lot of time thinking.   
   
Thinking sucks.  
   
The urges are almost worse since Cas moved in next door. The couple of brief conversations they have had while mowing the grass or when they get home at the same time are enough to prick Dean’s interest in his attractive and melancholy next-door neighbor. The guy’s hot and, from the lack of traffic around his house, available too.   
   
So Dean tries to ignore it—and usually his way of ignoring things is to go out and get shit faced. No way is he doing that again.  
   
He’s pondering the topic one night when it hits him that he just bounces from one person to the next. Dean digs out his relationship history and starts lining up names with dates. When he gets done, he realizes he can flip back through every traumatic memory of his life and line up the row of people he went out and had sex with to try and forget about it.   
   
He calls Bobby. “I get it now. I use sex as a crutch to not deal with my feelings. That was the whole point of making me take a break, right?”   
   
Bobby sounds impressed when he replies, “Good job, son. It only took you five months to figure it out. Now all you got to do is spend the next seven months coming up with a game plan to stop doing it.”  
   
Dean huffs out an exasperated breath. The euphoria of his success is terribly short lived in the face of a much harder assignment.   
   
“So what you’re telling me is I have to figure out how to be intimate with someone, not just sexual.” Dean’s trying not to sound disgusted.  
   
Bobby laughs. “No Dean. I’m telling you that you need to figure out how to be intimate with _you_. Then worry about the other people. You got to sort you out first.”  
   
 _I think I’m gonna be sick._  
   
Bobby gives him a moral inventory to work on. Well actually, Bobby gives Dean the first four pages of a seventeen page moral inventory to work on. Dean’s confused. “Dude, why not just give me the whole thing so I can get it done?”  
   
Bobby’s response is blunt and frightening. “Because you’d use. It’s not a race, Dean. There’s no prize for how fast you get it done. Go home, look over it, take your time and be as honest as you can.”  
   
Dean avoids it for three days. He keeps it stacked in his notebook but never looks it over. Just the words _moral inventory_ are enough to make his skin crawl. When he finally sucks it up he almost doesn’t get past the definition of what he’s about to do.  
   
 **Moral Inventory**... **A list of personality defects, violations of moral principles, defects in character, maladjustments, and dysfunctional behavior.**  
   
He gets why Bobby only gave him the first four pages—Dean’s pretty sure he’s going to hyperventilate.   
   
The god-forsaken thing starts off by asking him to list his flaws. Dean’s actually kind of glad there’s a check list. By the time he is done he manages to check off:  
   
Belligerent; Argumentative; Insolent; Avoidant; Oppositional; Defensive; Defiant; Enabling; Hypersensitive; Impatient; ill-tempered; Stubborn; Insecure; Reckless; Solitary; Lustful; Manipulative; Crude; Pessimistic; Possessive; Resentful; Sarcastic; Self-destructive; and Tense.  
   
He gets halfway through listing specific examples of them when he cuts and runs. Sammy’s not picking up the phone and Dean knows Bobby will just tell him some kind of crap about him needing to sit with his discomfort or some such bullshit.   
   
Dean needs to get out for while—It doesn’t matter where. He jerks open the door and almost runs over Cas on his way out.   
   
His neighbor jerks back out of Dean’s personal space, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”  
   
Dean doesn’t try to hide the huge grin that comes over him. This is just what he needs right now. “Cas, has anyone shown you around town yet?”   
   
Cas shakes his head as he says, “No. I was actually going to ask you if you wanted to grab some dinner. Jesse is over at a friend’s house and I’m tired of painting the kitchen.”  
   
That would explain the speckles of white in Cas’ hair and all over his clothing. “Dinner would be great, and I can give you a tour. It’ll do me good to get out of here.”   
   
****  
   
Dean is sliding into the passenger seat of Cas’ car less than fifteen minutes later. He gives Cas the grand tour: It’s not much, but at least this way Cas now knows where the cheap gas is and the best grocery store. How to get from their block to the hospital without having to get on the highway. Dean even shows off the Salvage Yard in case Cas ever needs his car worked on.   
   
They settle on Ellen’s to eat. It’s a good place and has the added benefit of being the only bar-like place in the area that doesn’t actually serve alcohol. Dean enjoys being able to play a few games of pool without some drunk asshole breathing down his neck.   
   
He should have thought about the reception he was going to get, though.   
   
Ellen and Bobby are old friends, and Ellen has been pretty protective of Dean since he started coming around. She knows he’s not supposed to be dating anyone right now. So when she brings them their menus and mutters, “Busted,” to Dean he can’t really do anything but roll his eyes and groan as she goes off to call Bobby.   
   
 _This is not a date._  
   
“What’s going on?” Cas asks, and Dean makes a mental note that the guy doesn’t miss much.  
   
“Ellen is a friend of mine. She’s got the wrong impression of us and thinks we’re on a date.”   
   
Cas tips his head to the side. “But we’re not on a date?”   
   
Dean chuckles. “I know. But try telling her that.”  
   
To his shock, Cas does just that. Dean can’t hear the conversation but he can tell by the way Ellen is responding that at first she thinks Cas is full of it. By several minutes in though Cas has clearly won her over. Before he leaves the kitchen area she pats Cas gently on the hand and gives him a reassuring smile. Dean’s at a loss.  
   
“What did you tell her?” he asks as Cas sits back down.  
   
Cas levels him with a unwavering gaze and replies, “I told her we were neighbors and you had been nice enough to show me around town. I also told her that I’m not gay and therefore could not be dating you—never mind the horribly painful break up that I just suffered which has made me consider celibacy as an option.”  
   
Dean sags back into the booth disappointed. At least he knows for sure now that Cas is off limits.  
   
Cas smirks. “I was lying, of course.”  
   
Dean’s shocked. “About what?”  
   
Cas beams as he takes a sip of his drink. “Well, we are neighbors—so that was true. I just ended a long term relationship and that sucked. But I am not a fan of celibacy by any way, shape or form.” He stops for a moment and seems to make a decision before continuing, “Yeah and I’m totally gay.”   
   
Dean feels like he just got hit with a two-by-four. He sits there dumbly for who knows how long.  
   
“Is that going to be a problem?” Cas asks, and Dean can hear the uncertainty in his tone. He snaps back into himself.  
   
“No way, dude. There’s no problem here,” Dean assures him. He’s trying not to think about his half-hard dick and the fact that this is totally a date even if it was on accident.   
   
 _I wonder if this is already covered by my list of defects, or if I’m going to have to add another one when I get home._  
   
It turns out Cas is from Florida. He fills up most of the dinner telling Dean about growing up with his twin, Jimmy, and all the fun they had together. Dean finally works up the nerve to ask why Jesse is living with Cas, and not his parents by halfway through the meal.   
   
Cas puts his fork down and takes a deep breath before answering. “Jimmy and Amelia were taking Jesse to a movie one night. They had an accident and Jimmy died. Amelia was driving and she had been drinking—I guess they both had really. Jimmy wasn’t wearing a seat belt and he got thrown out of the car by the impact. Jesse was pretty beat up but he was okay. Amelia walked away without a scratch.”   
   
Dean squirms in his seat. He’s thinking about how many times he was behind the wheel drunk and how lucky he is that it wasn’t him that killed someone.   
   
Cas swirls his straw in his drink as he continues, “They charged her as a drunk driver and sent her to treatment. Things were okay for a while but she started drinking again and eventually Jesse got in some trouble at school. Social services terminated Amelia’s parental rights and I took Jesse in. It’s been hard—he’s really angry and hurt.”  
   
“How did you end up coming here?” Dean asks quietly.  
   
“Amelia’s been harassing us since they took Jesse. She was calling all the time and showing up at the house in the middle of the night drunk. I tried everything to get her to leave us alone but she followed me to work one day and my boss called the police. Jesse said he wanted to leave, so we moved here and changed our number so she can’t contact us without going through the courts.” Cas shrugs and leans back in his chair.  
   
“I’m sorry.” It’s all Dean can think of to say.  
   
They sit there silently for a while until Cas asks, “So, um… you’re in recovery?”  
   
Dean’s a little shocked. He doesn’t hide it but he didn’t think _recovering addict_ was tattooed on his forehead either. He must look confused because Cas smiles shyly and gestures at Dean’s chest. “You’re wearing a Narcotic Anonymous shirt.”  
   
Dean busts out laughing. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been sober over a year now.”   
   
Cas looks like he is contemplating something but he doesn’t say anything, and Dean’s not sure what to do now on this not-a-date.  
   
Cas drives them home and thanks Dean for tour and dinner. Dean tells him he will see him later and he really hopes that’s true.   
   
Bobby is blowing up his phone less than ten minutes later, and Dean has a long discussion about accidental dating with him. Bobby makes him go over his list and seems to be pretty happy with how it’s shaping up. He tells Dean to go work on the attributes part of it.  
   
Dean thinks that part is probably worse. He’s used to being a fuck up—but having to list off things about yourself you like? Oh hell, no.   
   
It takes him all night and a couple of phone calls to Sam before he manages to get a list of positives:  
   
Courageous; Intuitive; Brave; Self-reliant; Loyal; Straightforward; Realistic; Decisive; Caring; Flexible; Candid; Willing; Loving; Trustworthy; and Helpful.  
   
Dean is relieved when he hands it in to Bobby for inspection. He’s less than overjoyed when Bobby gives him the next part. He sees the word _RESENTMENTS_ and turns to Bobby, blurting out “Dude, you gotta be kidding. This is going to take me the rest of my life.”  
   
Bobby just pats him on the shoulder and says, “Better get started on it then.”  
   
****  
   
He works on it for a week and a half. Dean ends up with a five page long list of his resentments: those are just the ones about his father. He’s torn between being relieved and horrified at actually seeing how angry his is at John Winchester.   He’s sad when he has to put Sam’s name down too. But he figures if he can’t be honest with himself then he’s never going to able to do this. Truth be told—Dean got jail time and Sam got a scholarship; Dad always treated Sam like he was more important than Dean; Sam cut him off when he was using and never came to visit when he was incarcerated.   
   
He’s not sure what he wants to do about his relationship with his father, but he can work on the one he has with Sam. He tosses and turns most of the night and then wakes up before five the next morning. Dean paces the floor of his house for ten minutes until he decides that writing something is way better than calling. His house isn’t exactly wired for the digital age yet, but Cas has been letting him use his laptop when the library is closed.  
   
Dean’s knocking on the door of his neighbor’s house before he totally processes that it’s a little after five in the morning. Cas opens the door in pajama pants and no shirt, his hair sticking up in a hundred different directions.   
   
Dean hasn’t seen Cas since their not a date experience—and he’s momentarily struck dumb.   
   
“Dean, do you need something?” Cas’ voice is rough and deep with sleep.   
   
Dean shakes off his stupor. “Oh man, I’m so sorry. I forgot what time it was. Look, I know it’s early but I need to use your computer. I can do it out here on the porch if you want. I’m sorry I woke you up.”   
   
Cas stares at him for so long that Dean almost sure he is just going to shut the door and walk away. But then Cas pulls it open farther and says, “Come on in. I have to get up soon anyway.”   
   
When he turns around to walk away Dean follows after him. His eyes are drawn to the delicately tattooed lines all over Cas’ back and arms. “Wings,” Dean whispers, not able to catch himself before it slips out.   
   
Cas turns to look at him from over his shoulder and flushes pink. “Yeah, I forgot I wasn’t wearing a shirt. Most people don’t know about them.”  
   
Dean picks up on the unspoken request. “Your secret is safe with me.”   
   
Cas slides him the laptop and disappears into the kitchen. Dean’s not sure how much later he comes back but he waves a hot cup of coffee under Dean’s nose when he does. Dean takes a break from his frantic typing to sip it and lean back against the couch.   
   
That’s when he notices that Cas has slid onto the couch right beside him instead of the chair across the room. Dean can feel the heat from the coffee and the warmth of Cas’ body so close to his own. He fights the urge to slide over and press himself up against the other man.   
   
“No offense,” Cas mutters, “but you look like hell.”   
   
Dean chuckles into his coffee. “Yeah, my sponsor’s got me working on some heavy stuff and I’m sleeping like crap.”  
   
“Is that what the e-mail’s about?”   
   
Dean ponders lying. This is really private and he and Cas haven’t known each other that long. But maybe an outside perspective is what he needs. “Yeah, I realized I have some stuff I need to tell my little brother and get off my chest. I thought I would email it to him so he could read it and maybe we can go from there.”   
   
Cas makes a non-committal hum and Dean goes back to typing. When he’s done he slides the laptop over to Cas and asks, “You want to check it over before I send it?”  
   
Cas’ eyes widen but he immediately starts to read. Dean sits in silence beside him, fiddling with his coffee cup and the laptop cord, until Cas starts typing.  
   
“What are you doing?”  
   
Cas grins as he explains, “Correcting your grammar—you have a terrible understanding of _their_ , _there_ , and _they’re_.  That, and you have a lot of run-on sentences.”   
   
Dean snorts and elbows Cas in the ribs.  
   
“All done,”   Cas says as he passes the computer back to Dean. Dean takes a deep breath and hits send—watching as his relationship with his brother is probably irrevocably changed.   
   
Cas picks up both coffee mugs and heads back to the kitchen. He trails the back of his hand along Dean’s arm as he goes. Dean shivers—it’s been a really long time since someone has touched him that way.   
   
“Thanks Cas,” he mutters as Cas lets him back out the front door.  
   
“You’re welcome.”   
   
Dean’s crossing the threshold when Cas whispers, “Dean.” By the time he turns around Cas is up in his personal space so close they are almost touching. It seems like the most normal thing in the world for Dean to slide his hands over Cas’ narrow hips and soft skin.   
   
Cas’ eyes slide shut and his mouth drops open at the touch. Dean presses his forehead against the other man’s and groans.  
   
 _Five and half more months._  
   
Dean nuzzles the side of Cas’ face as he pulls his hands away regretfully. “Thank you,” he whispers again as he backs off the porch and goes home to take a cold shower.   
   
 **5\. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.**  
   
Sam sends him a text message halfway through the work day—all it says is:  
   
 **That was heavy. Coming to visit.**  
   
It’s not much—but it’s enough to make Dean’s heart start beating again.   
   
Sam calls him that night and makes plans to come down for a long weekend. Dean hears the confusion in his brother’s voice and wants to tell him just to forget about it. That the email wasn’t important and all of that stuff was ancient history. But he keeps his mouth shut.  There’s a determination in Sam’s voice that speaks to his brother’s own need to resolve this and move forward. Dean thinks maybe Sammy has been waiting for Dean to get well enough to talk.   
   
Dean’s not sure he’s ready—but he knows he’s only as sick as the secrets he keeps.   
   
****  
   
Dean is surprised to see Cas coming across the lawn towards him when he gets home from a meeting a couple of days later.   
   
He smiles and says, “Hey Cas.”   
   
Cas grins back, stuffing his hands in the back pockets of his jeans before replying. “Dean.”  
   
He doesn’t say anything else but follows Dean up the steps and into Dean’s house. There’s a companionable silence, but Cas is fidgety—like he wants to say something but can’t get it out.   
   
“Dude, whatever it is you should probably just let it out before you explode,” Dean chuckles.  
   
Cas fixes him with an intense stare and takes a deep breath before he asks, “How are things with your brother?”  
   
Dean’s a little startled. That wasn’t what he expected. “I don’t really know for sure yet. Sam says he is going to come in for the weekend and we’re going to try to talk it out. I guess its ok. He’s still talking to me at least.”  
   
“That’s good. I was hoping that would work out—your email was pretty intense.” Cas is picking at the loose linoleum on top of Dean’s yet-to-be-ripped-out kitchen.   
   
Dean opens his mouth to ask Cas if he is okay or something, but before he can Cas turns back to him and slides closer to Dean.  
   
“I wasn’t sure,” Cas says, his voice low and dark. “But then you touched me on the porch the other morning. Dean, umm…..I was hoping that maybe you would like to have dinner with me sometime….you know, like a date.”   
   
Cas pauses and then chuckles—the tension creeping out of him slowly. “Wow. I am _really_ rusty. That was horrible.” he laughs.  
   
Dean leans back into the kitchen wall and makes a noise that sounds like gears grinding. He closes his eyes and swipes his hands over his face, peeking out between his fingers at this guy that he really wants and can’t have.  
   
Cas must misinterpret Dean’s reaction. He backs up and stutters out, “It’s not big deal. I just thought you were interested. I’m sorry.”  
   
“YES!” Dean blurts out, before his brain processes anything other than the fact that he doesn’t want Cas to feel unwanted.   
   
“So you _do_ want to go out with me?” Cas asks slowly, as though he is talking to someone particularly dumb.  
   
Dean huffs out his frustration and takes a deep breath before he replies, “Cas, I want to—I want to so bad that my teeth ache—but I can’t right now.”  
   
Cas nods. “Okay, now’s not good. Is there a better time?”   
   
Dean makes a face like he tasted something bad before he mutters out, “Five months from now?”  
   
 “ _FIVE MONTHS FROM NOW_?! Cas erupts. “What the hell happens in five months from now? If you aren’t interested you could just say no. This is ridiculous.” He turns to walk out the door and Dean rushes to block his path.  
   
“Please,” Dean begs, “I’m not fucking with you. Just give me a minute and I’ll try to explain.”  
   
Cas looks so pissed Dean’s almost sure he’s going to shove him out of the way and stalk out of the house. He’s pleasantly surprised when Cas turns and throws himself down on Dean’s thrift store couch in a huff.   
   
“This had better be good,” Cas threatens.  
   
Dean opens his mouth and stumbles over where to even start. He ends up waving his hands at Cas in what he hopes is a placating gesture and saying, “Just wait here for sec,” as he runs up the steps to his bedroom.   
   
When he returns Cas raises an eyebrow at the set of notebooks he drags down with him.  Dean lines them up on the beat-up coffee table and sits down on the couch beside Cas. He points to the first one and says, “That one is all my legal papers. Yeah, it’s so complicated that I have to have a notebook. I’m a convicted felon. I served around two years in jail after I couldn’t do what probation asked me to do. I’ve been arrested a bunch of times. Just finished probation a few months ago.”   
   
Dean looks over at Cas to see if there is even a reason to continue. Cas returns his gaze calmly and points to the next one. “What’s that one for?”  
   
Dean grins as he says, “That’s my treatment journal. It’s a record of all my certificates and assignments from when I was in counseling.” At Cas’ raised eyebrow Dean continues, “I did sixty days in inpatient and then a thirty-six week outpatient program that took me more like forty-five weeks. After that I did another ten weeks of aftercare. I’m done for now.”  
   
“For now?” Cas asks, his fingers tracing over the cover of the notebook.  
   
“Yeah,” Dean replies, a challenge in his tone, “I don’t know—I might need to go back for some more one day.”  
   
Cas tilts his head to the side before nodding. He moves his hand to the next one and looks over at Dean.   
   
“Those are my medical records.  I’ve had a couple of overdoses. The last one stopped my heart.” Dean shakes out a breath and closes his eyes as he says, “I have Hep C. I’ve been saving money up for the treatment and I’m scheduled to start taking the medication next week.”   
   
He doesn’t open his eyes, too afraid of the look of disgust he thinks he’ll see on his friend’s face. Dean flinches at the gentle stroke of fingers Cas across his face and into his hair. He blinks open his eyes as he feels his head pulled closer. Cas presses a single gentle kiss to Dean’s forehead before asking, “Saved the best for last?”   
   
Dean barks out a dry chuckle as he looks at the coffee table. The single undiscussed notebook left. “That one explains why I’m booked up for the next five months.”  
   
Dean reaches over and drags the book off the table, turning it over in his hands as he speaks. “This has my entire fucked up relationship history in here. I’m a mess Cas. I jump into bed with people and never commit to anything, and don’t know how to be intimate with anyone unless I’m naked. Hell, even then it’s just always been physical. My sponsor and my therapist told me I needed to take a year off. So I’ve been celibate for seven months—trying to get myself worked out. I’m trying to get to a point where I at least sort of like myself, so that maybe I can let someone else close enough to like me.”   
   
Dean shifts uncomfortably on the couch and blurts out “I was doing really well too—and then you moved in.” He looks up into Cas’ wide eyes and says, “I like you Cas, I really like you. I want to be with you. But I can’t right now. I promised some people that are really important to me that I would do this and I can’t just quit. I can’t quit on me anymore. So I’m officially undateable for the next five months and after that, who knows. Every step I’ve taken in recovery has taken me longer than someone told me it should. So, hell—it could take me the next five years to work myself out.”   
   
Cas snorts. “You do realize that you’re giving me the ‘ _it’s not you it’s me’_ talk and we’re not even dating.”   
   
 “Yeah,” Dean mumbles.  
   
Cas sighs as he looks around the room. “You’re on step four, right?”  
   
Dean almost falls off the couch. “Yeah, how did you know that?”   
   
Cas’ smile is sad as he admits, “I did some research after our dinner. Which I guess really wasn’t a date.”  
   
“I’m sorry.” It’s all Dean can think of to say.   
   
 “Can I take these home with me and read them?”  
   
The best response Dean can come up with is: “Huh?”  
   
Cas grins. “I want to get to know you, and you’re all spread out here in these pages.”  
   
Dean gasps. “Cas, the stuff in these notebooks is horrible stuff. You don’t want to know that much about me, I promise.”  
   
“Step five says you’re supposed to share your mistakes with another person,” Cas whispers. “Let me be that person for you. Let me really understand who you are and where you’re coming from. Then let me decide if I’m willing to wait for you to be ready. Either way I’ll still be your friend. I want you to trust me.”  
   
“It seems a little lopsided, Cas.” Dean is hedging, but what Cas is asking for is something Dean aches to have and is terrified to risk.   
   
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me. I just can’t do it tonight. Jesse’s in bed but I need to get back. I wasn’t planning on being here this long,” Cas explains.  
   
Dean gives in. “Take the legal one. If you make it through that one then I’ll trade you another.”  
   
Cas pulls on the book Dean is still holding and shakes his head. “No, give me this one first and then I’ll trade you for the others.”  
   
“Why do you want the relationship one first?” Dean questions, a little irritated.  
   
Cas grins as he says, “Because it’s the one you’re the most afraid of me seeing. I figure this way, it’s out of the way first.”  
   
Cas is gone five minutes later with the damn notebook in his hands. Dean watches him almost run back to his own house with a sick feeling in his stomach.  
   
 _Damn, I must really like this guy._  
   
****  
   
Sam rolls into town late Friday night. Dean’s not sure about it but he thinks Sam might be a little taller than the last time he saw him.   
   
“Are you ever going to quit growing?”   
   
Sam smiles “Are you ever going to catch up?”    
   
They fake it through most of Saturday, trading insults and catching up on things. Sam’s looking for an internship for the summer at a law office. Dean chuckles at the thought of his little brother wanting to be an attorney after the way they were raised. Sam’s not dating anyone and harasses Dean endlessly about his self-imposed dating ban. They go to a meeting together and Dean prays silently for a benign topic for discussion, only to have Sam raise his hand and suggest, “Family.”   
   
Dean could have hit him for that.   
   
It just feels good to have his brother there. They manage to strip out the last of the disgusting carpet from the second floor and drag it to the curb. Dean’s not lucky enough for Sam to miss the way he watches Cas as he mows the yard next door. Dean gets an elbow in the side and a yelled, “Like what you see?” from his brother. He flushes what must be ten shades of red.  
   
Cas tips his head back and howls with laughter.   
   
Sam finally pins Dean down after dinner. “About your email,” he says. “I’ve read it a bunch of times and I get what you’re trying to tell me. I don’t think I agree with all of it, but this isn’t really about just me—you’ve got your feelings and I have mine. I’m going to respect that.”  
   
Dean doesn’t know what else to say but, “Thank you, Sammy.”  
   
Sam shrugs. “I’m not sure how to make this better.”  
   
Dean chuckles back, “Sam, I never expected you to. I just needed to tell you—to tell someone.” He swallows his embarrassment and finishes, “I just wanted to be heard.”  
   
Sam nods and reaches out to push on Dean’s shoulder just enough to rock him backwards. Dean smacks back at him and they both grin. This is new ground for them both but they’re in it together.   
   
Dean debates telling Sam about the Hep C treatments. He finally decides he would rather have it out there than risk Sam thinking he was hiding something. Still, any conversation about the topic is enough to make Dean blush and stumble over his words. With Sam it’s even worse.  
   
Sam’s so worried Dean can almost feel it pouring off him.   
   
“Are you going to be okay?” Sam’s puppy-dog face is so hard to ignore.  
   
“Yeah,” Dean replies. “The doctor says the treatment can be really rough, but there’s no way of telling how bad until I start it. I might get pretty sick. I didn’t want you to think I was using.” He’s shocked at the truth of the statement. Sam’s support of him is a gift and Dean doesn’t want to mess it up.  
   
Sam’s worried question of, “Who’s going to take care of you if you get sick?” is something Dean never really considered.  
   
He should have—the treatments are hell.   
   
****  
   
After Sam leaves to go back to school Dean starts a cycle of treatments. He gets a combination of interferon alpha and ribavirin once a week for thirty-six weeks. The first few weeks just make him tired, but then the nausea starts. Dean feels like he’s going to puke all day for three days after each dose. Nothing really helps.   
   
He’s lucky Bobby is so tolerant. Dean gets pushed to office duty on the days he feels terrible. If he’s having a particularly bad day he can just take off. Bobby comes to get him and drives him to meetings, takes him home after and tosses him in bed. Dean’s grateful.   
   
Turns out gratitude is one of those things he’s learning about right now.  
   
Jesse mows his lawn for him. He won’t even let Dean pay him for it. All he says in response to Dean’s offer is, “Uncle Cas says you’re sick right now and need our help. You’ve helped us with a lot of stuff. It’s our turn to help you.”  
   
There’s logic there that Dean is too exhausted to argue with.   
   
Cas is true to his word. Despite Dean’s anxiety, Cas reads and returns every notebook Dean has. When he returns them there’s always something stuck in the front cover. A note of thanks, an herbal remedy for nausea that actually helps, some completely bizarre newspaper clipping from another state—Dean’s not sure what they mean but they make him smile.   
   
Then he comes home from work one day to find a package shoved behind his screen door. When he gets it unwrapped it’s a journal: an old one. Dean opens the front of it and reads the first few lines of scratched in, horrible, handwriting.  
   
 _I may have twin brother but we are not the same person._    
   
Dean smiles—looks like Cas is a man of his word.   
   
****  
   
Over the next couple of weeks Dean pours through almost a decade of Cas’ adult life. The journals aren’t consistently kept but the entries—when there are entries—vacillate between hysterical and heart-wrenching. Dean experiences what gives his friend the most joy, and shares some of Cas’ long gone sorrow.   
   
Cas hands over the last journal hesitantly—at Dean’s questioning look Cas says, “There’s a lot of you in there.”   
   
Dean is overcome with a need to run to his bedroom and read the whole thing, _right now._  But he tries to only read on the days he feels too bad to do anything else.   
   
Dean has to stop reading so many times when Cas is writing about loosing his brother. The anger and desperation his friend felt is too close to Dean’s own fears of loosing Sammy. By the time he gets to the part about Cas’ long-term partner packing up and walking out after Cas took in Jesse, Dean’s ready to hunt the guy down and kill him.   
   
Then there’s the stuff about Dean himself. Cas’ description of Dean makes him blush and then chuckle and then blush again. Dean had really been hoping Cas had missed him falling off the curb that first day. He hadn’t been so lucky. There’s commentary on some of their more intense conversations. Dean has to jack off after reading Cas’ take on Dean touching him that morning on the porch.   
   
Dean hadn’t realized how worried Cas was about him once he started the treatments. It feels good to know that he cares.   
   
The last thing written in Cas’ journal is a single sentence:  
   
 _So yeah, I’m waiting._  
   
Dean blames the giddy feeling in his chest and the tears that leak out of his eyes on his medication.  
   
 **6\. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.**  
   
Cas is like a dichotomy trapped in an enigma wrapped up in a burrito. In other words: Dean’s in over his head. Cas’ most recent relationship lasted almost seven years. They were talking marriage in a state where that is legal when his brother died. After Jesse came to live with Cas, his partner—who never wanted to be a parent—decided to leave. Cas hasn’t had the time or the inclination to try dating since.   
   
So it turns out that Dean’s dating ban took some of the pressure off of them both. They work out a system: there’s no dinners or movies, no unmanaged time. Cas helps Dean out on his house when he’s feeling up to it. They paint, replace the kitchen countertops, strip out the bathroom floors. They get to know each other.   
   
It’s a mistake.   
   
Dean knows he’s messed up when he starts thinking about Cas all the time while he jerks off. All of his sexual frustration built up and centered around his friend and would-be lover. It’s not Cas’ fault, but those private moments start seeping into their routine. When Cas gets too close Dean wants to kiss him; Cas touches Dean and he’s hard in an instant; Cas tells Dean this guy from work asked him out and Dean slams a hammer down on his own finger so hard from not paying attention that Cas tries to talk him into going to the hospital.  
   
He finally just stops masturbating. It’s getting too confusing. That, and Dean figures it’s only one more month: he probably won’t die.  
   
It doesn’t help all that much and Cas is clueless. So Dean finally swallows his pride one hot afternoon and throws Cas back his shirt.   
   
“Cas, you got to put your shirt on,” Dean demands.  
   
Cas raises a confused eyebrow but he slides the t-shirt back over his chest. “Care to elaborate there?”  
   
“I just need you to cover up,” Dean manages, “and stop touching me; and stay like five feet away from me; and figure out a way to stop being so hot.”  
   
Cas laughs until he has to sit down. “Are you kidding?” But one look at Dean’s pinched face and Cas sobers. “Oh, you’re not kidding.”  
   
Dean blurts, “It’s not your fault but I can’t stop thinking about you. I’m supposed to be focused on me right now and all I think about is you. I’m so wrapped up in what you probably feel like, and taste like, and, GOD, everything about you that I had to stop—well, you know—because I was starting to feel like you were just mine and you aren’t.” This has to be one of the most embarrassing conversations Dean’s ever had.   
   
Cas blinks a few times and then asks, “So you’re not….” The accompanying hand gesture _so_ doesn’t help  
   
“No,” Dean replies. “Not for a while now.”  
   
“Oh,” Cas sighs. “Well okay. I can do that.”   
   
Dean’s surprised. “Cas,” he says, “I didn’t mean that you had to stop, too.”  
   
“I know,” Cas replies. “But you’re not the only one having a hard time with this. I’m not doing a good job keeping my hands to myself. It would probably do me some good to lay off.”   
   
Cas blushes a rosy pink on his pale cheeks and Dean huffs out a stressed laugh.   
   
It gets easier after that. The attraction’s still there but they are both really careful to keep strict boundaries. Cas never does go on any dates even though Dean assures him he could if he wanted. After the third time Cas gives him such an evil look that Dean never brings it up again.   
   
****  
   
Jesse is a firecracker. He’s loud mouthed and direct. He says just what he wants to say and doesn’t give a shit who he’s talking too. Dean loves it, but the third time Cas gets called out of work to hit the principal’s office it’s getting pretty old.  
   
“He’s just so angry,” Cas sighs one night. “I don’t know what to do with him, and they are starting to talk about making him leave school.”  
   
Dean blows out a long breath and ponders his options. “Does he like cars?”   
   
Cas snorts. “He hates everything.”  
   
Cas isn’t wrong: Jesse does hate everything—Including Dean, but probably only because Cas likes him. He hates cars and junk and being outside most of the time. But one rare day when Dean is laid up from one of his last treatments Jesse brings him lunch and rattles off the make, model and year of a dirt bike he sees on Dean’s TV. It’s all the opening Dean needs.  
   
Bobby digs up the nastiest, most beat-up piece-of-shit dirt bike he can find and Dean offers it to Jesse, with help on repairs, for a deal: He tones it down at school and Dean will help him fix the bike. Jesse glares at him with suspicion, but it turns out he likes the bike and the idea so they reach a truce, and Cas stops having to work overtime to make up for what he’s missing by dealing with the school.   
   
****  
   
Bobby’s impressed by his step work. Dean breathes a huge sigh of relief. There’s a thought in the back of his head that this probably only gets harder, but it’s so nice to have accomplished something difficult that he’s willing to just be in the now.   
   
He laughs at that thought. It’s the first time that not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future feels normal. It’s good.   
   
Bobby hauls him out for pie and coffee, then slams it down on him straight.   
   
“So your year’s up next week.”  
   
Dean looks at his sponsor and has the overwhelming urge to lie: to say it’s no big deal and he doesn’t have plans. But he’s trying to work an honest program here. Bobby’s done too much for him to be treated that way.   
   
Dean sighs. “Yeah, how do you feel about that?”  
   
Bobby snorts. “Fuck me, kid. How do you feel about it?”  
   
That really the issue: Dean’s not sure how he feels. “Scared,” he blurts, “excited, terrified, horny, lonely.”  
   
“Well,” Bobby asks, “what are you gonna do about it?”  
   
“Bobby.” Dean swallows before continuing, “I really like Cas. I really like me when I’m with Cas. I don’t feel pressured or put down. I don’t have these crazy expectations like I used to have that a relationship is going to fix everything. I want to give this a shot. I want to see what happens between us.”  
   
“What happens if it don’t work out?” is Bobby’s response.   
   
“Well,” Dean stutters, “I guess I move.”   
   
Bobby glares at him until he offers, “If it doesn’t work then I regroup and try again when I’m ready. I’m okay by myself, Bobby. I can be happy on my own—I just want to try being happy with him.”  
   
“Specifically him?” Bobby questions.  
   
“Yeah,” is all Dean can think of to say.  
   
“Okay, kid,” Bobby mutters. “Give it a shot.”   
   
Dean manages to refrain from squealing like a girl.  
   
But it’s a close thing.  
   
****  
   
Cas is nervous: Dean can tell. If his nerves are half as bad as Dean’s are then they are quite a pair. All of this build up and Dean’s got no idea how to date someone. He’s fallen, stumbled into a bunch of relationships. But Dean’s never known anyone long enough to get nervous on his first date.   
   
“I’m scared shitless,” he blurts out in the car driving to dinner.  
   
Cas blinks wide eyes at him before replying, “Glad to know I’m not the only one.”  
   
They laugh, tension easing from around them. “You look like you’re feeling better,” Cas says.  
   
Dean smiles. “Yeah, it took a long time but I finally feel like I’m getting stronger.”  
   
The treatments had ended but the aftereffects of the drug therapy were strong. It was a slow climb back into full health for Dean. He still gets tired easily and is occasionally nauseous, but it’s less and less. “At least I kept my hair,” Dean jokes.  
   
Cas reaches up to cup the back of Dean’s head and they both gasp. “I can do this, now?” Cas whispers.  
   
“Yeah, please,” Dean replies. It feels so damn good to be touched. Cas is so careful with him.   
   
“Did the medication work?”  
   
“The first test came back Hep C negative,” Dean answers. “But they want a recheck in a few months to make sure.”  
   
“So you’re cured,” Cas states and Dean wishes it was that simple.  
   
“More like remission,” he replies. “But it’s really good news.”  
   
Cas hums happily and strokes the back of Dean’s neck.   
   
It’s not their first meal together, but it is the first time they’ve shared a plate and sat on the same side of the booth. Cas folds his napkin into some origami and Dean makes his into a paper airplane. They bump shoulders and hands and Cas wipes something off Dean’s face, lingering over his lips and flushing.   
   
Dean feels like a teenager on his very first date. His palms are sweaty and his heart pounds half the time. It’s fun, joyful even.   
   
They spend the time talking about their week and chuckling at the strange looks they are getting from other people in the restaurant. The meal’s just ok; the company divine.  
   
Dean’s so hot by the time they get back home that he can’t stand it. All of this build up and he’s finally going to get laid. Cas follows him to the door and comes in for coffee. Dean knows it’s a horrible cliché but Cas is a coffee fiend. He drinks more on any given day than a room full of people in recovery. It’s downright scary.   
   
They curl up on the couch, Dean slipping excitedly into Cas’ arms. There’s an awkward moment of hesitation, and then Cas puts his cup down on the table and slides his hands into Dean’s hair, bringing their lips together.   
   
Oh God, it’s so good. Dean knows he’s making totally embarrassing noises but it’s the first kiss he’s had in a year. Cas’ mouth is deep and wet and tastes so good, and Dean’s pushing him back onto the sofa and sliding his hands up under Cas’ shirt, rubbing himself against Cas’ leg. Dean’s mewling and nipping at Cas and Cas is moaning, “Dean, Dean,” over and over again.   
   
It’s just getting to the really good part when Cas grabs Dean’s hands and says, “No.”  
   
There’s a moment when Dean is utterly lost, because he’s not sure anyone has ever said that to him before in this kind of situation.   
   
“What?” Dean asks, because he is certain he heard that wrong.  
   
Cas blinks and squeezes Dean’s hands before he repeats, “No. Half the time I don’t kiss on the first date; you’ve gotten a lot farther than most people.”  
   
“I don’t care about most people,” Dean huffs and slides back until he’s pressed against the far side of the couch. Cas sits up and looks at Dean warily.   
   
“Was all this some kind of joke?” Dean asks.  
   
Cas opens his mouth, and then shuts it before replying, “What’s wrong with you? I like you—so much. I don’t want to just be a good lay for you. I want a relationship.”  
   
“So,” Dean questions. “What do want me to do?”  
   
“I want you to woo me,” Cas says, waving his arms expressively. “I want you to pursue me. I want to pursue you. I want to date you and kiss you and be held by you and work up to being really, honestly intimate with you. I want to make love with you: not just have sex, and I’m willing to wait for that.”  
   
Dean’s stunned and lost. “I don’t think I know how to do that, Cas.”   
   
Cas’ laughter is loud and he smiles at Dean as he says, “Then you’re just going to have to figure it out. I’m not going to settle for less. Besides, I’m worth the work—I promise.”  
   
Dean grins as he says, “I bet you are.”   
   
Cas takes his hand and tugs Dean closer. They lean together on the couch as Cas finishes his coffee. Dean feels warm and content—even though it’s unfamiliar territory—like the pressure is off of him and he doesn’t have to perform. He relaxes and leans into the gentle stroke of Cas’ hand up and down his arm. Awareness slides away from him.   
   
“I have to go home,” Cas whispers in Dean’s ear after what must be an hour later. “The sitter has to leave at eleven.”  
   
Dean’s not sure when he fell asleep. It’s embarrassing as hell. He blushes and stammers out, “I’m so sorry Cas.”  
   
Cas chuckles as he walks to the door. “You’re adorable when you’re sleeping. You look so young.”   
   
Dean mutters, “Thanks.” He doesn’t know what else to say.  
   
Cas holds out his hand and says, “Come kiss me goodnight?”  
   
It’s the best offer Dean’s had in a long time. He didn’t think kissing could feel so good.   
   
****  
   
“Sammy,” Dean blurts into the phone the next morning, “you got to help me. I’m in over my head here and I have no idea what I’m doing.”  
   
Dean spends the next ten minutes talking Sam down. He probably could have worded that better. The only times he has called Sam in a panic before have involved the police or lots of lost money. Really, it’s understandable that his little brother freaked out. When Sam figures out that Dean’s calling for dating advice he pays Dean back for a childhood of malicious teasing. He knows he deserves it—hell, Dean would be doing the same thing if the situation was reversed—but he needs help and it’s way too early for this.   
   
“Sammy, damn it!” he yells over his brothers laughter, “I need advice, not harassment. I don’t know how to woo anyone. I never had to do that before.”  
   
“So,” Sam replies, “The great Dean Winchester, put on hold by the one person he wanted but couldn’t get.”  
   
“I can get him,” Dean snarks. “He, I, ummm…we just want this to mean something.”  
   
There’s a pause on the other end of the line and Sam asks, “Does it mean something? Does he really mean something to you Dean?”  
   
“Yeah.” It’s as honest as he has ever been to anyone. “Sam, this is a big deal. I like Cas a lot—I think I could love him. I want to love him. I need your help so I can give him what he needs.”  
   
 “What does he like?”   
   
Dean spends the next half an hour with a pen in his hand taking copious notes. They come up with a number of options. Some of them are so corny Dean crosses them off later out of manly shame. But cooking Cas a romantic dinner is a viable idea. Dean’s got cooking experience, even if it was learned during incarceration and residential treatment—as long as his new boyfriend isn’t expecting French cuisine he should be able to pull this off.   
   
Cas is blessedly easy to impress.   
   
They’ve spent the week sending each other stupid text messages, long-winded, horribly sappy voicemails, and sliding little notes under each others’ screen doors and car windshield wipers. It’s been exciting in a way that Dean’s not familiar with. In his history of relationships he was usually moving on to the next person by now. The tension that comes from waiting and looking forward to Friday night, just so he can spend some quality time with Cas, is nothing like what he’s used to. It’s frightening and exhilarating. When he sees Cas walking up to the front porch Dean feels warmth blossoming in his chest. The other man’s smile makes him lightheaded.   
   
The tender, gentle kisses of hello that Cas gives him make him melt all over. He almost forgets about the pasta that’s currently boiling over on the stove.  
   
“Missed you,” Cas breathes into Dean’s mouth.  
   
Dean lets out a shaky breath and nuzzles into the side of Cas’ face as he whispers, “Missed you, too.”  
   
Then the smoke alarm goes off and Dean spends the next few minutes trying to salvage dinner.   
   
“I swear I can cook, really,” he mutters as he sets the table and fusses with the food presentation.   
   
Cas slides his arms around Dean from behind and rubs his face against Dean’s back. The embrace is so warm and open that Dean relaxes and sighs out a lot of the nervous energy that’s been building as the night began.   
   
“I’m not dating you for your prowess in the kitchen.”  
   
It brings up an interesting point. “Why are you dating me?” Dean wonders as they sit down to eat.   
   
Cas slides his plate/bowl over closer to Dean’s and scoots in close to the other man’s personal space. “I like you, Dean. You’re genuine in a way that I haven’t seen in a long time. You’ve struggled and fought to get where you are in your life; you’ve made mistakes and you’re trying to learn from them. I admire that.”  
   
Dean flushes from Cas’ honesty. It’s not something that he’s one hundred percent comfortable with. “Thank you,” he murmurs.  
   
Cas smiles and takes a long drag of his soda. “I’m a serial monogamist,” he says, and at Dean’s odd look he adds, “My shortest relationship was two years. My longest was seven. I date exclusively—with rare exceptions I don’t kiss on the first few dates, only sleep over when I think I’m ready for things to be really serious. Even then I’m not physically intimate with someone until I know I love them. Can you deal with that?”  
   
“You’re asking for me to not go out with anyone else?”   
   
“Yes,” Cas replies, “but more than that I’m letting you know I’m interested—really interested in you, in us being something long term. I’m just wired that way. I need you to be able to accept that, and understand that I move slowly because that’s who I am—not because there’s anything wrong with you.”  
   
Dean’s grateful for the pep talk. He’s concerned about some things with Cas that are going to come up when they get closer. He’s not sure how to bring up the track marks on his arms and inner thighs, or the stab wound in his back from a bar fight when he was really drunk. Cas has never mentioned the marks. But Dean knows that his friend has to have seen some of them. His body is like a mirror for his soul. Everything looks great unless you look too closely at it: then you see the frayed edges and tattered seems. Dean gets the feeling that Cas wants to settle in and examine every little part of him. Like he wants to turn Dean inside out and rub over all the places Dean tries so hard to hide.   
   
Dean’s afraid that Cas won’t like what he sees when he does that. But the thought that this passionate, intense, attractive man beside him might be able to see past the damage Dean has done to his own body is too tempting to ignore. Dean wants to be found and explored. He wants someone to really see him, scars and all, and love him anyway.   
   
They spend the rest of night in easy conversation. Moving from dinner to the couch, both sitting on opposite ends and discussing their week as they slide their legs next to each other and brush their fingertips together. It’s sweet and intense and Dean’s shocked by how much he wants the night to never end.   
   
When it’s time for him to leave, he walks Cas back to his place even though it’s just next door. They hold hands and Dean can feel his heartbeat pounding in his head as Cas brushes his lips against Dean’s and lets Dean slide their mouths together and pull Cas in close.   
   
When Dean gets into bed that night he can still feel his lips tingling. He closes his eyes and prays, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I have made some really fucking shitty choices when it’s come to my life. I’ve messed things up so badly that some of it just can’t be fixed. I’ve hurt some people who just didn’t deserve to be hurt. I don’t want to be that guy anymore. I don’t want to do those things to Cas. I need to be a better person than I have been—than I know how to be. I need you to help me. All this crap that I carry around with me, I need you to take it so I can move on. I’m going to keep working on it but if you could help me out it would be great, please.”   
   
 **7\. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.**  
   
Dean’s never been too aware of sensuality. Sexuality is more his forte. But the last month with Cas has taught Dean a lot about the joys of a slow burn relationship. It can be frustrating: he’s taken enough cold showers to fill up the rest of his lifetime. But the pay-off is more than reward enough.  
   
Instead of quickie sex—where he can’t meet the other person’s eyes or remember their last name—Dean gets movie night curled up on the couch with Cas in his pajamas. Half the time he doesn’t even remember the plot: he’s too taken in by the warmth coming off the man he’s holding, and the slow touches Cas gives him when he drags his fingertips up and down Dean’s arms.  
   
Over the next few months they work out a pretty good system. Cas’ job keeps him pretty busy throughout the week, and he and Dean pass the time by trading text messages and late night phone calls—where they lay in their respective beds and flirt and laugh, and tell each other how much they miss one another.   
   
The kissing has been phenomenal. It was something that always just seemed like a gateway to get to good stuff before. Now he could spend half the night relearning the curve of Cas’ mouth, the taste of his lips. Dean’s excited every time he sees Cas. Every phone call and text message leaves him with a warm feeling burning inside his heart. The endless affection he’s showered with makes it easy to relax and trust Cas to lead him through this never before charted territory. Dean’s out of his comfort zone and he’s never felt so free.  
   
Dean still gets to a meeting every day. Bobby goes with him to most of them and Dean’s happy to be able to have contact with his sponsor outside of working at the Salvage Yard. Most nights he gets dragged out for coffee after by group members and friends in recovery. He always goes with them if they ask—Support being one of the things that helps to keep people sober the most. Dean’s no idiot either. He knows he still needs all the help he can get. There are nights when all he wants to do is stay at home and wander next door to see Cas. Those nights are the hardest but Dean’s getting the point where he understands the need for ‘me time.’ Cas has a life of his own and Dean isn’t willing to collapse his own world down to just one person anymore. He’s done that before and lost everything. When the dust settled he had nothing left and no one to turn to. He wants this relationship to last but he can’t afford to be isolated just in case it doesn’t.   
   
They’re careful with each other—Dean never wanting to overstay his welcome or make Jesse uncomfortable. The kid’s starting to come around. Where a month ago Dean was glared at suspiciously now they have dinner together, all three of them, and Dean helps Jesse with his homework: what little of it he can understand.   
   
Bobby gives him a long assessing look over lunch one day. “You look happy, son. How are things going with your neighbor?”  
   
Dean can’t help the flush that slides across his cheeks. Talking to Bobby can sometimes be like talking to a dad that actually gives a shit about you. He’s not exactly sure because Dean doesn’t have a lot of experience with father figures that aren’t stoned. “We’re good.” And he smiles because it’s the truth. “We’re taking things really slow and I’m not sure where it’s going, but it feels good and I like him a lot.”  
   
Bobby nods. “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?”  
   
“Yep,” Dean grins. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands with my total lack of sex.”  
   
At the disgusted look on Bobby’s face Dean laughs so hard he knocks his drink over. So it’s been a year of up and downs: Dean’s actually pretty sure he’s learned something from it. So that makes it a gift.  
   
Sam’s only about an hour away for the summer. He’s gotten an internship at some law firm for his Master’s and Dean’s been able to see more of his brother than he has in a long time. Sam’s in love: all a flutter about some girl named Jessica that he met working on a civil case. She’s all his brother talks about during their weekly phone calls and Dean cracks up at the excitement Sam uses to describe her. He wants them to double date but Dean declines repeatedly. He doesn’t want to meet Sam’s summer love only to have him pack up and move back across the country at the end of the summer, and leave Dean stuck dealing with her. That—and frankly Dean’s not ready to share Cas.   
   
He’s selfish. He can admit that now.   
   
****  
   
“Do you have any plans for the weekend?” Cas asks him one night. Things with Jesse are starting to improve as the kid settles into his school and Dean works with him on the dirt bike they scavenged. They’ve started doing something like a family dinner on Wednesdays: sometimes it’s at Dean’s house sometimes at Cas’. Tonight they’re at Cas’ place and Dean’s washing dishes to help clean up as Jesse plays Guitar Hero and Cas packs up the leftovers.   
   
Dean turns to look at the other man. “I have to help Bobby unload one of the garages that’s full of junk Saturday morning, but I’m free the rest of the time. Why?”  
   
“Jesse got invited to a birthday party Saturday night. One of the kids from his class at school who’s parents seem really nice and since he’s doing so well I thought it might be nice to let him go.” Cas is rambling. Dean smiles to himself while he scrubs a pot. Cas only rambles when he’s building up to something big and he’s nervous. “It’s a sleep over so I was thinking maybe you might want to spend the night with me here.”  
   
Dean freezes elbow deep in the dishwater. He turns to Cas with wide eyes and asks, “You want me to sleep over.” This is a big deal.   
   
“Yeah, I’m not trying to rush things but, I was thinking it might be nice for us to just, you know, sleep together.” Cas looks around the kitchen everywhere but at Dean.  
   
Dean chuckles. “Yeah, Cas, I know, and you’re right. I would love to just sleep with you.” Cas has always been upfront about the deal. Sleeping over does not equal sex in the other man’s head. Dean can appreciate the boundaries. It drives him crazy with how much he wants to be with Cas that way. But the waiting is actually really nice. There’s a sensuality to it that Dean’s never experienced before.  Sexuality Dean knows all about: but the underlying emotions—the difference between fucking someone and making love with someone—Dean’s got no clue.   
   
But he’s really enjoying learning about the difference.   
   
After Jesse shuffles off to bed they curl up on Cas’ couch and watch the news. Dean pulls Cas close and spends most of the half-hour show pressing teasing kisses to the other man’s neck and ears. It’s warm and comfortable and affectionate in ways that Dean didn’t know existed before now. When the shows over and it’s time for Dean to go, he watches Cas stretch and yawn before teasing, “Want me to come tuck you in?”   
   
His boyfriend stares at him for a minute before stepping closer. “If I said yes, would you be able to leave when you were done?”  
   
Dean opens his mouth to say yes, but he’s trying to work an honest program. “Probably not.”   
   
Cas eases the blow of putting him out on the doorstep with slow, sweet kisses that make Dean’s toes tingle and his pants feel two times too tight.   
   
Saturday turns out to be an unholy mess. Dean’s grateful that he and Bobby went to a morning meeting, because if they had waited until the afternoon Dean would have never made it. He all but crawls from the door of his car to Cas’ front door, and it only takes one look before the other man is asking, “Jesus, what happened to you?”  
   
“I pinched something in my back helping Bobby.” Cas drags him into the living room and eases Dean down onto the couch.   
   
“What can I do?” Cas asks, and Dean moans out, “Can I have a glass of water and a bunch of ibuprophen.”   
   
Cas is a gift, and would have been a great nurse: he’s just the right touch of kindness and bossy. He props Dean up and makes dinner, lets him eat it on the sofa even though he hates having food in the living room. When it doesn’t seem to get better he slaps Dean down on a heating pad and runs nervous fingers through his hair as Dean tries to relax.   
   
“I think I need to take you to the emergency room,” Cas finally announces and Dean shakes his head.  
   
“I’m not going—they won’t do anything for me there.”   
   
“They could give you something for the pain,” Cas insists, and Dean grabs his hand and holds him still until the other man meets his eyes.   
   
“I won’t take it, Cas. I’m an addict—I won’t risk my sobriety over a little bit of pain. That stuff is a narcotic and addictive, and I used to use it all time. I can’t go back.”  
   
He sees the worry in Cas’ face but the other man lets it go, and Dean says a silent prayer of thanks to his higher power. They haven’t really discussed the issues related to being in a relationship with an addict, though he noticed a while ago that Cas threw out all of his alcohol when Dean started coming over.   
   
“I need to shower,” Dean ventures. “Then do you think we can go to bed?”  
   
Cas has to help him up the steps. Dean feels like a ridiculous old man who needs a walker. It’s even more embarrassing when they get to the bathroom. Getting his shoes off is a whole different story and as he flushes red, terribly embarrassed, Dean finally concedes defeat and asks, “Can you please help me?”   
   
Cas smiles. “I thought you would never ask.”  
   
Cas helps him without complaining, and Dean leans against the wall laughing, “I’ve dreamed of this moment for a long time, and it always went so much better than this.”   
   
Cas laughs as he turns on the water. “I know I told you no wild sex, but I wasn’t expecting you to incapacitate yourself in order to avoid it.”   
   
Dean sticks out his tongue and then groans as Cas starts stripping off his own clothing. “What are you doing?”  
   
“Getting naked—or are you insane enough to think you can shower on your own when you can’t even stand up.” Cas cocks his head to the side and glares at him. “We’re both big boys, we can handle this, get in.”   
   
Dean’s so tired and in so much pain that his world is spinning, and after a pathetic attempt at self grooming he leans up against the wall and lets Cas wash him off. He’s thought about being in the shower with Cas before, too, and it had always seemed more fun. Cas’ touch is gentle but clinical and Dean appreciates it. If the other man had been trying to arouse him Dean’s not sure it would have worked and that would have been even more horrible. As it is—with Cas pressed naked and soapy up against him—Dean’s dick only gives a slight twitch of interest. He flushes red and hangs his head.   
   
“I do want you, I hope you know that,” he blurts.   
   
Cas turns to look at him with raised eyebrows and points to his flaccid penis. “Are you worried about that? Well you should be—I’m horribly offended that you’re in so much pain that the sight of me naked does nothing for you. Really, Dean.” The teasing smile almost makes the flack worth it. Dean works up enough energy to throw water at Cas, before the other man rinses them both off and wraps him up in a soft towel.   
   
They stumble to the bedroom where Cas slips Dean into some soft pajama pants and slides on his own, before gently rolling Dean over onto his front and giving him one of the best back massages he’s ever experienced.   
   
“You’re wonderful at this,” Dean manages to gasp out around his moaning.   
   
“Thank you.”  
   
Cas is rubbing some kind of smelly junk on his back that makes him feel hot and cold at the same time. Dean can feel the tension ease out of his spine as Cas rubs him, and he relaxes until Cas’ fingers brush the scar on his lower back. “What’s this from?”  
   
Dean turns his face to the side out of the pillow and answers, “I wish I knew.” Dean feels the touch withdraw and adds, “I was drunk and probably fucked up too. I don’t really know what happened. Some people told me I picked a bar fight with a guy over a game of pool and the guy pulled a knife on me. I lost.”  
   
Cas traces the scar gently over and over before muttering, “You could have died.”  
   
“Yeah, I could have, but I didn’t really care at the time.” Dean feels Cas slide off of him and struggles to roll over as gently as he can. This is a conversation he’s been dreading but they need to have it. Dean needs Cas to see him clearly. All of his flaws—not just the idea of who he is now, who he is trying to be. “I made a lot of bad choices Cas. I hurt myself a lot and put myself into situations where I could have hurt other people or died. I didn’t care. All I ever cared about was my drugs and how I was going to get them.”   
   
“Dean holds out his arm and slides his fingers over the inside of his elbow. “See the marks I have there? Those are track marks from where I shot up. There’s more of them too, on the insides of my thighs because it was easier to find the veins there after a while. They won’t ever go away but they should get a little lighter. I pumped myself full of anything I could trying to make the world go away, Cas. I pushed it to the limit so many times and sometimes I woke up in a hospital when I shouldn’t have woken up at all.   
   
 “I need you to see it—I need you to be able to accept what I live with everyday, what I did to hurt myself. If you can’t then this isn’t going to work. I hurt myself and I hurt so many other people. I pray every day that I can be forgiven for that. That something bigger than me can help me be a better person, so that all those mistakes I made, that scarred me and the people I cared about, don’t have to happen again. I’ve done terrible things to the people I loved and to people I barely knew. I don’t want to be that short sighted weak person anymore. I don’t want to hurt anymore. I don’t want to hurt people anymore. I don’t want to hurt you.”  
   
Cas pulls him close and kisses Dean so gently, wiping away the tears that are trickling out the corners of Dean’s eyes. Dean lets his eyes fall closed as Cas trails his mouth down to where the scars reside on his arms and kisses every one of the marks he can find on Dean’s body. Dean feels wrung out and exposed: so unused to the feeling of being taken care of that it feels like forever before he relaxes. When he finishes Cas curls up next to him and drags the blankets over them both and turns out the light. “I have scars too Dean—even if you can’t see them. Maybe we can heal together.”  
   
   
 **8\. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.**  
   
“There is no way I can do this.” Dean throws his pen down onto the coffee table and leans back from the notebook.  
   
“It’s just a list, Dean,” Cas offers, and that is totally not helpful.  
   
“A list of everyone I ever fucked over in my whole damn life, Cas! I’m going to be writing it until I drop dead. Do you have any idea how many freaking people that is? The women alone would fill up a library.” Dean looks over to see Cas rolling his eyes.   
   
“Yeah, Casanova, you crushed their souls and left them to limp on through life without you.”  
   
“Shut up, Cas!” But Dean can’t help the smile that peeks out across his mouth. Cas has a way of putting his overdramatic issues in perspective.   
   
“Why don’t you just start with the first person you think of and then go from there?” It’s a good idea but Dean balks at taking it. The first person he can think of is his dad and fuck if he is going to make amends to that asshole.   
   
At his blank look Cas sighs. “Try Sam then? Can you work on Sam?”  
   
Dean thinks about it and then shrugs. Yeah, he can handle Sammy. After all, it’s just a list.   
   
Two days later he’s up to four pages and he’s still on his brother. The highlights include: sleeping with Sam’s first girlfriend; sleeping with Sam’s babysitter; sleeping with Sam’s best friend; stealing the money Sam had saved for years to buy a car and blaming it on their dad; blaming Sam for all the money he stole from dad and letting Sam get his ass beat instead of taking it like he should have done; and by far the one Dean is the most ashamed of—Dean had torn up Sam’s first application to college because he hadn’t wanted his brother to leave. Of course he was too high at the time to realize Sam was smart enough to make a copy of it.   
   
Bobby reads over the list shaking his head and mutters, “Damn, son,” before handing it back and walking away.   
   
Cas doesn’t ask and Dean doesn’t tell.   
   
He gets through Cassie, Lisa, Barbra, Nikki, Annie, Diane, Lesley, Amanda, Tiffany, Rachel, Daniel, Bryan, Mickey, Sandra and her twin sister Sandy, Martha, Kevin, and Pat without too much trouble. It’s horrible to look at but Dean figures look at what he did to these people on a piece of paper is still better than carrying it around inside him for the rest of his life.   
   
Cas reads it all when he finally feels like he’s done and all he says is, “I think you forgot someone.”   
   
 _Fucking boyfriends and their fucking knowing of everything._  
   
“I’m not doing it, Cas.” Dean refuses—It’s too much to even ask for. His dad has done so much to him that he should make amends for that Dean can’t even contemplate thinking about telling his father he’s sorry. Hell, Dean’s not even sure he is sorry.  
   
“You haven’t backed away from anything this whole process, why are you afraid of this?” Cas whispers and Dean erupts. “Damn it, Cas, I love you but that doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to do this. You have no idea what my dad was like.”  
   
Cas stares at him for a while before he hands Dean his keys and starts to push him out the front door. At Dean’s blank look Cas says, “Two things—one, don’t yell at me because you’re mad at your father. I don’t know anything about your relationship with him because you can’t even talk about it. Go calm down and come over later when you’re over yourself. Two, I love you, too.”  
   
Dean doesn’t remember walking back to his own house. It’s not his first blackout but it’s definitely one of the more pleasant ones he’s had.   
   
****  
   
Jesse goes to a week of summer camp that weekend. Dean and Cas haven’t talked much about Dean’s list or the slipped out ‘I love you’ that Dean dropped in the middle of their disagreement. He’s nervous and worried about what happens next for them.  Dean’s said those words before: usually right after he got off or right before he was trying to get into a girl’s pants. But he’s never really meant them before, so this is new ground for him. Cas shows up at his door with a bag and a pizza the night Jesse leaves. “I was thinking maybe you might want some company?” he offers, and Dean tugs him close and kisses him hello.   
   
They flop on the living room floor and stuff themselves on pizza and soda. When they finish Dean holds up his notebook. “You were totally right. I have major issues with my dad. I wrote my list for him, but I wanted to just tell you about it, because I really owe it to you to do that. Do you want to hear it now?”  
   
Cas crawls over to Dean and snuggles into his lap while Dean leans back against his ratty old couch. “I want to know, Dean. Tell me.”  
   
“My mom died when Sam was really young. My dad was never really home a lot or stable so when she was gone there wasn’t anyone to keep him straight. He drank a lot and I guess did a bunch of other stuff, even though I didn’t know it at the time. We lost everything but the fucking car. They foreclosed on our house and he lost his job, and we ended up just traveling around everywhere all the time. We’d stay with people that dad found when he was out drinking and using. It’d last for three or four months—if we were lucky—and then he’d drag us away again. Sam and I grew up in hotels, crack houses, and prostitutes’ apartments.  
   
 “ Dad had a habit of just picking up random women and calling them our new mom. He’s so fucked up, Cas. He gave me my first beer, my first joint, bought me my first lay. When I was nineteen he snorted coke with me, and he used to pay me in pills for taking care of Sammy when he was out on a bender. I ran drugs for him, and cleaned up after him, and took care of my brother, and he used to tell me how I was just like him and how proud he was of me when we shot up together. Hell, I probably got the Hep C from sharing needles with my dad. When I went to treatment he snuck drugs in for me at visitation. Who the fuck does that, Cas?”  
   
Dean trails off, lost in his own thoughts, and Cas remains a silent but supportive presence deep inside his personal space.   
   
“I really resent him. He’s a fuck-up, and that’s all he taught me to be. He’s going to die a fuck-up and I’m terrified it’s a family condition. I look at him and all I see is what I could be one day, and it makes me sick and it hurts and I just can’t deal with him. So I made my list of crap I need to make amends to him for, and all I can think about is how I should tell him I’m sorry that I didn’t leave him in fucking ditch to die one of the many nights I found him there… I’m sorry—I didn’t think I was still this angry.”   
   
It’s shaming to realize that even after so much time apart, his father still has such hold on him. Dean wipes the tears from his face and shakes his head. “I stole his pills; I stole the car when he was at the bar one night; I took his money and blamed Sam for it; I broke his nose once when he was so drunk he didn’t know what was going on, and then I told him he fell. He can’t find mom’s wedding band because I stole it and gave it to Sammy for Christmas one year when we had no money. I used to pour out his alcohol so he could be sober enough to go to parent-teacher night. There’s so much, Cas—It’s too much.”  
   
Dean relaxes into Cas’ embrace and they curl together in silence, until Cas whispers, “Would you like me to stay?”  
   
“Yes,” Dean breathes, and presses a kiss to the top of his boyfriend’s head. “Always.”   
   
Cas turns until he’s straddling Dean’s lap and kisses him long and slow, pulling away the tiniest bit to nip at Dean’s lower lip before sliding his tongue into Dean’s mouth. Dean pulls him closer and slides his hands up the back of Cas’ shirt, feeling the flex and pull of the muscles in his back and shoulders as he holds him. “I love you,” Cas whispers, and Dean takes in a shaky breath before answering, “I love you, too, Cas.”  
   
They make out like teenagers, grinding against each other and slipping their hands under each other’s shirts. It’s fun and erotic, and Dean’s aware that they are entering into uncharted territory between them. Cas isn’t pulling away, backing off, or hesitating; He’s pushing himself into Dean’s caresses and grinding his own hard dick into Dean’s stomach. “You trying to tell me something here, baby?” Dean asks as he pushes Cas down so he can get some friction on his own aching dick.   
   
Cas pulls back and looks at him with a smile. “Yes, I’m trying to tell you something. Am I that rusty that it’s not clear?” And with that, Dean watches as Cas strips off his shirt and asks, “Is this clearer?”  
   
Dean grins. “Getting there. I might need more. I’m a little slow.”  
   
Cas helps him pull of his own shirt and this is it; this is as far as they have ever gone together. Dean knows from experience that Cas has a wicked tongue and very sensitive nipples. He’s touched them, tugged on them and tasted them when they’ve made out in the past, but the pants have never come off; the only time they have ever seen each other naked is that one horrible night in the shower.   
   
“How about now?” Cas asks, and Dean can see the dare in his eyes.   
   
“More,” Dean whispers, and Cas slides off his lap and stands in just his jeans and bare feet. Dean breath catches as he slides out the button and drags the zipper down. Even from where he’s still sitting Dean can tell Cas isn’t wearing underwear. “You planned this, didn’t you?”   
   
Cas laughs. “I love you, you love me, and Jesse is gone for a week. It seemed like appropriate timing.”  
   
Dean rises to his knees  in front of his soon-to-be lover. He knocks Cas’ hands away before taking a hold of his open jeans and pressing his face to just below Cas’ navel, inhaling deeply and moaning. Dean raises his eyes and meets Cas’ gaze as he drags the jeans slowly off the other man’s body. When he’s done Dean stands and rubs circles with his palms on Cas’ hips. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers. “I’m going to take you upstairs and spread you out on my bed and lick every square inch of you, starting with the wings on your tattoo.” Cas gasps out a shaky breath and moves his hands toward Dean’s pants only to have him step away. “Sorry baby, but if you take those off right now it will be over before we get started—I’ve wanted you so bad.”   
   
Dean’s as good as his word—A few minutes later he’s kneeling over Cas, who’s spread out on his stomach gasping into the pillows as Dean traces every delicate line of ink-work, first with his fingers and then with his tongue. He’s squirming and moaning and grinding into the sheets, trying to get some friction while Dean nips at his shoulders and sides and flicks his tongue at the top of the cleft of his ass.   He doesn’t stop until Cas starts begging, and when he does Dean flips him over and sucks first one nipple into his mouth—licking it and nibbling on it—and then the other, back and forth. Cas finally pushes his mouth away, panting and glaring at him until Dean licks a stripe up the underside of his dick, and then Dean chuckles as his lover collapses on the bed, grabs Dean’s hair and lets out a relieved moan of appreciation. Cas spreads his legs and Dean slides between them, sucking and licking until Cas comes down his throat with a strangled moan. Dean presses his face to Cas’ inner thigh as he shakes, thinking about how good this feels—even though his mouth is sore; and even though after over a year with no sex, cum still tastes like crap.  
   
Cas somehow manages to pull himself together enough to drag Dean up for kisses, and to try and undo Dean’s jeans. Before he can squirm his hand inside Dean pulls away laughing. “Baby, you need to wait a little before you do that. I’m not a teenager, even if it has been a long time.”  
   
Cas blinks the afterglow away for a moment and chuckles. “You came from sucking me off.”  
   
Dean blushes. “So what? I almost came when you took off your shirt. I’m easy.”  
   
He surprised to find Cas a little grumpy. “I didn’t even get to touch you.” Dean tugs off his jeans and his boxers—that now totally need to be washed—and goes to the bathroom to clean himself up before sliding into bed. “You can touch me all you want, baby. Just give me a few minutes.”   
   
Cas’ definition of minutes is more like a second and a half. He pulls Dean in and cuddles up for some serious kissing. It’s relaxing and hot, and Dean can’t stop himself from whispering “I love you,” again and again, until Cas smiles brightly and breaks off sucking on his neck long enough to answer, “I love you, too, babe.” They spend long moments just exploring each other’s bodies—Cas investigating every mark and freckle Dean has, asking questions about tiny scars and making up crazy stories for how he thinks Dean got them if Dean can’t remember. It says something about how solid their relationship is that Dean forgets for a while that they are in the middle of their first time together.   
   
It’s not until Cas pushes aside the covers to slide down and kiss the track marks on Dean’s thigh gently that everything suddenly heats back up. Cas has fantastic hands, and an even better mouth. He works his way down one of Dean’s legs and back up the other. It feels better than anything Dean ever remembers doing before, and he is so distracted by the easy affection between them that he almost lets Cas suck him into his mouth—almost. Dean manages to slap his hand onto Cas’ forehead right before his lips wrap around Dean’s dick. Cas looks disheveled and annoyed at the interruption. “I’m sorry,” Dean groans out. This conversation is going to be horrible and embarrassing but it’s a must have. “I can’t let you do that without me wearing a condom.”   
   
Cas backs away slowly to sit up but it’s not a rejection. He keeps his hands on Dean’s thighs and squeezes gently, saying, “You took the treatment, I thought you were fine.”  
   
Dean shrugs, and reaches up to tug the other man down to hold him against his chest. “I’m in remission, but I still need more tests and I want to talk to the doctor before we even consider unprotected sex. I can’t hurt you, Cas; I won’t risk giving you something when I can easily avoid it. So for now, it’s got to be condoms or nothing on my end.”   
   
Dean laughs as Cas whines, high pitched like a twelve year old girl, before sitting up and smiling at him. “Ok condoms it is.” There is a scramble for the necessary items in the bedside drawer that results in Dean sliding off the bed onto the floor while Cas laughs himself silly.    They regroup and slow down, kissing and moving slowly together until Dean pushes Cas away with regret and anticipation saying, “I want you inside me.” They fumble but manage to roll the condom on with shaky hands. Dean spreads himself out on the bed and moans his appreciation as Cas takes his time exploring and touching gently, before working him open and sliding inside. Cas paces them out until Dean is frantic, clinging to his lover in a way that Dean’s never done before. Cas stares into his eyes and won’t let Dean hide from him. The level of intimacy is so high Dean feels exposed and a little lost, caught up inside it all.   
   
He doesn’t even remember ever cumming so hard before in his life. As he comes down he curls into Cas and lets the other man hold him and whisper to him, “It’s alright, you’re alright. You’re so beautiful.” Dean feels the wetness on his face as they clean each other up, and is grateful Cas doesn’t comment on it. Dean’s already too raw tonight to try and examine what a tearful outburst during hot sex really means for him at this point. Cas pulls him close and Dean—who has always denied other bedmates cuddles on principle—curls into Cas’ arms and drifts off to sleep.  
   
 **9\. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.**  
  
Sam is less than pleased at Dean’s attempts to make amends. Dean can’t really blame him. Sam at least sits quietly through Dean’s drawn out explanation of all the wrongs he has committed against his brother. When Dean finally finishes what he less than affectionately calls the _well I fucked you over_ list, Sam blinks twice and then erupts with, “My fucking girlfriend, best friend, and my teacher? Why not the god-damn librarian, you fucker? Not enough time on your hands? You fucking jerk. I swear to God. I take everything back about wanting you to meet Jessica; you’d probably just try and fuck her, too.”   
   
Dean will be eternally grateful to both Bobby and Cas for forcing him to practice this. They went over it again and again, and as stupid as it seemed at the time, the knowledge that losing his temper is just going to piss Sam off more is the only thing keeping Dean’s mouth shut while his brother yells.   
   
Sam eventually winds down to glaring and huffing; after a couple of minutes of that Dean shakes his head, unclenches his jaw and offers a very sincere, “I’m so sorry. I know you don’t want to hear that right now, but I am. I was wrong, I hurt you and I’m sorry. I’m a shitty brother and maybe you can forgive me for that one day.”   
   
Sam gets up to leave and Dean flinches in the face of his worst-case scenario: Sam walking out of his life is something Dean just can’t stomach. Grief chokes him and he sits in stunned silence as his younger brother grabs his coat and slams the door behind him on the way out. He’s still sitting there two minutes later when Sam yanks the door back open and snarls, “I’m pissed, I’m going for a walk, you better fucking still be here when I get back. Jerk.”  
   
So maybe it’s not perfect—but by the end of the weekend Sam calms down enough to hug him goodbye and make him promise to bring Cas to dinner next week. Dean chuckles as Sam calls him from halfway home on his cell just to say, “You are such an asshole and I love you.” They’re going to be okay.   
   
Dean works his way through some of the other people on his list of amends. It takes time and a lot of acceptance of rejection and humiliation on his part. He hits a meeting a night for certain, and on the weekends sometimes two if he’s feeling shaky. Cas is supportive but realistic: he holds Dean accountable when he thinks Dean’s getting too agitated, or when he suspects that Dean forgets it was him who pissed these people off in the first place, one night shouting, “You don’t get to be pissed off about this, Dean, you’re the one that caused it.” Cas is right but Dean’s still working on accountability, and when people refuse to forgive you it hurts: a lot.   
   
Dean’s grateful for the calm nights of security he finds in Cas’ arms. The addition of sex to their relationship has been fun and relaxing and easy. But it’s not all that important, and that’s the part that shocks Dean. He enjoys it. Hell, he loves it; but it’s not every night, and on the list of things that are important to him about Cas it doesn’t even rate in the top ten. He’s happier than he has ever been in his life—and then he gets the phone call.   
   
“Dean, Dad’s in the hospital. They say it’s serious.” Sam sounds frantic and Dean feels his heart constrict. He can’t deal with this.   
   
“Sam,” he starts, only to be cut off by his brother. “Dean, I’m sorry. I know you aren’t talking to Dad but I have an interview—a huge interview and I have to be there. I’ve dealt with him this whole time and I would do it now but I need your help, I can’t do this alone. Just go and check on him, and sign the papers from the hospital, and I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t make me beg.”  
   
Dean doesn’t remember giving the phone to Cas, but he’s grateful that his boyfriend gets all the information from his brother because it never occurred to Dean to do that. His father is blessedly close by—only a state away. It’s a short drive.  Cas calls the hospital and pretends to be Dean to get the basics while Dean throws a bunch of stuff in a bag and prays and prays for strength and support and help. He hits the road in the middle of the night with a passionate kiss goodbye and promise to call as soon as he gets there.   
   
He spends most of the trip there on the phone with Bobby, as his sponsor walks him through coping skills and offers support.   
   
His dad is dying. It’s easy to see as soon as he hits the door to the hospital room. John Winchester is bloated and blotchy and hooked up to a dozen or so machines. The nurses speak in hushed tones and Dean knows from his own hospital stays that it’s code for them not being sure if he is going to make it. The doctor is less than optimistic. “Liver failure and lung disease. Your father is in terrible shape. We’re doing what we can but if there is other family they need to get here as soon as possible.”  
   
Dean tells Sam to go to his interview. There’s nothing they can do for their dad now anyway. When he gets off the phone with his brother, and Cas, and then finally Bobby, Dean goes back to the room and waits for his father to open his eyes.   
   
Dean’s not really surprised that his dad doesn’t recognize him at first. He figures he’s gained fifteen pounds of muscle since the last time they saw each other; and who knows if his dad was sober for long enough at Sam’s graduation to see what Dean really looked like then.   
   
“Hey dad,” Dean offers weakly, in response to his father’s shaky groans.   
   
“Dean?” ~~~~  
  
“Yeah, it’s me.”  
   
“How did you get here?”   
   
“Sam called me and said you were sick, so I came to check on you. You’re not doing so great, you know.” Dean sits forward in his chair and watches as his father seems to slowly wake up from a long troubled sleep.   
   
“They don’t know what they’re talking about—I’m going to be fine. Just need to get out of here and get a few beers in me, and I’ll be ready to go.” It’s enough to push every button Dean has. He leans back and comments, “That shit is what got you here in the first place. You’re fucking drinking yourself to death. What the hell is wrong with you, Dad?”  
   
The whole conversation is an exercise in futility. Dean yells and his father tells him he has no business telling him what to do. The elder Winchester expounds on the virtues of his afflicted lifestyle and Dean shouts about how the same lifestyle got him a chronic disease and a felony record. They clash until the nurses come to break them up, and Dean stalks from the room so livid he can’t even see straight.   
   
Morning finds him covered with a thin blanket on the lounge, his father glaring out the window as the first rays of dawn peek through the curtains. Dean gets some coffee and checks in with Sam, who by this point only a few hours away. Dean only has to hang in there a little bit longer and he won’t have to deal with Dad alone anymore.   
   
The first thing John Winchester does when Dean comes back to his room is ask him for a cigarette from behind his oxygen mask. Dean shakes his head and argues, “No fucking way.”   
   
They sit in silence for a very long time.   
   
Dean finally gets up to go somewhere and do something to relieve this horrible tension. He wants to call Cas and check in with Bobby, to make some kind of contact with the people he now identifies as family. As he moves toward the door his father raises his hand and says, “Dean, I want to tell you something.” It makes the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stand up, but he turns and slides into the seat next to the bed. His father reaches out to touch his hand and Dean thinks that this might be the first time his father has touched him in years. Their eyes meet and Dean bites his lip as the elder Winchester continues.  
   
“I made a lot of mistakes in my life. I did a lot of things I wish I could take back and do over differently. I wasn’t always the best father to you and to Sam. I could have been there more and I know you picked up a lot of the slack for me. No-one’s going to remember me when I’m gone, Dean. The only things I left in this world that are worth a damn are you and your brother, and I did a shitty job of raising you boys to be good men. But you turned out that way anyway. You make me proud Dean. You’re turning your life around and doing something that I was always too weak to do. I need to tell you that. I need you to hear that my life wasn’t pointless, because I had you—and your life isn’t pointless, either. You have a lot of life left in you, Dean. You need to go and live it now. I hope someday you can forgive me for letting you down every step of the way.”  
   
Dean runs; he doesn’t even stop to think about it until he hits the parking lot and collapses in his car, sobbing uncontrollably to Cas on the phone. The man on the other end can’t understand anything Dean is saying but stays on the line until Sam finds him and tugs him in close.   
   
“You ok?” Sam questions. Dean shakes his head and answers, “Hell no.” But they laugh, and he buys Sam breakfast.   
   
They make plans to move their dad to an adult home. The medical staff says it’s only a matter of time now until his body gives out. Throughout the process Dean talks to his father a few more times. But later, when it is all said and done, that brief moment in the hospital will be what sticks with Dean as the last time he ever really spoke to his father.   
   
 **10\. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.**  
   
 There’s a saying about all good things coming to an end. Dean’s not sure where it originates from, but he knows it has meaning when applied to his life.  
   
Cas comes stalking over to his house on a random Thursday waving papers and yelling about his sister-in-law. It takes Dean almost half an hour to calm him down enough to explain what’s happening, and even then Cas just slaps the papers into Dean’s hands and collapses on the couch, huffing and muttering.  
   
It’s court documents for visitation rights. “What is all this, Cas?” ~~~~  
  
“She’s suing me for visitation with Jesse. Can you believe that shit? The woman is a mess—she killed my brother, put my nephew at risk, and now she has the gall to sue me?”   
   
“I thought you said she was drinking,” Dean offers. “If she’s drinking there’s no way they are going to let her see Jesse, and you don’t have anything to worry about.”  
   
Cas groans. “She says she went to treatment. Like that makes it all better. Her lawyer says she’s been sober for three months and she should have rights to supervised visits to start out with.”  
   
Dean shrugs. “How does Jesse feel about it?”   
   
Cas won’t meet his eyes and Dean comments, “You haven’t told him yet have you?” At the shake of Cas’ head Dean adds, “You have to talk to him—he’s old enough to have an opinion. This is his mom and he might want to see her if she’s sober. This could be a good thing.”  
   
“She fucking killed my brother, Dean,” Cas growls. “She doesn’t deserve to get a good thing. She’s not the one who had to bury him, and she’s not the one who had to uproot her whole life to keep Jesse safe and put up with his anger and his pain for all these months. She doesn’t deserve another chance.”   
   
“If life was about getting what we deserved then I wouldn’t have you,” Dean murmurs, and feels an ache start in the center of his chest. He and Cas have disagreed before but never actually fought.  He doesn’t want to break this thing they have between them but Dean’s done trying to become what other people want him to be.   
   
Cas is hurt and angry and wants to blame someone. Amelia is a good target and Dean can’t dispute the fact that her behavior caused all of this. “I’m not going to give her anything, Dean. I don’t care what they say. I’m going to fight her. I’m not going to lose Jesse when she decides it’s time to go out on bender. I have to keep him safe.”  
   
“Give her a shot, Cas—It’s supervised visitation.” Dean argues, and Cas erupts.  
   
 “She’s a fucking drunk, Dean—she didn’t care about anything and she left a trail of shit behind her where ever she went. She’s irresponsible, she’s unpredictable, she’s untrustworthy…”  
   
“She’s me,” Dean interrupts.   
   
At Cas’ blank look Dean adds, “She’s an addict, Cas. Just like me. You don’t want to see it because you want to hate her. You want to blame her so you don’t have to deal with the fact that Jimmy is gone. You’re acting like a hypocrite. You come over here all the time and watch me struggle with resentments, and making amends, and the whole time you don’t really think change is possible—if you did you would be willing to give her a chance. You resent her so much you want to keep her son from her just because you think she hasn’t earned him. It’s not right and I’m not going to stand here and tell you it is. Go home, Cas.”   
   
Dean watches the other man as his eyes widen and his hands clench. “Don’t you dare tell me how I feel,” Cas growls, and Dean closes his eyes before he orders. “Get out of my house, Cas.”   
   
He doesn’t move until after he hears his front door slam shut. Dean slides down the wall in his living room and curls in on himself, crying. He doesn’t see or speak to Cas for a week.   
   
****  
   
Dean buries himself in work and meetings, even though most of the time he’s numb, tired and just wanting to be at home in bed alone. Bobby keeps a close eye on him but holds his tongue. It’s a painful process. There’s an ache in Dean’s chest and he wants so badly to rewind time and make it all just disappear. It’s a dangerous place for him to be.   
   
Wandering out of the local wholesale place after picking up supplies for the garage one afternoon, Dean bumps into a guy he knew on the street.  He can’t even remember the man’s name but Dean gets a rush of heat up his spine from just seeing him. That slow burn he remembers from shooting up grabbing a hold of him and squeezing tight like an old friend that’s been missing for so long. The guy is still using—Dean can see it in his eyes and the shake of his hands while they talk. The temptation is so strong and Dean’s got nothing to go home to tonight, no one waiting for him, nothing to answer to but himself.   
   
He can taste the high and the sweet oblivion that would make the pain he’s still so unused to dealing with go away for a while. He wants it, and he might have gone with the guy if it hadn’t been for fate stepping in out in that parking lot.   
   
Dean looks around to see if anyone is watching and his eyes happen to land on the shape of a woman loading bags and bags of groceries into a van. “Missouri,” Dean whispers, and it’s like the world starts moving again. “I have to go,” he tells the guy, and Dean’s crossing the parking lot as fast as he can.   
   
“Are you willing to accept some help with that, or are you just going to tell me I’m loading them wrong,” he quips as he gets close. Missouri smiles and hugs him before she answers. “Both. You sure you still want to help?” He takes the bags from her and finishes putting them in the car, with Missouri bitching the whole way about his technique. It’s refreshing and a relief, and sometimes people never change—but maybe he can.  
   
“Got yourself out of some trouble over there, I see,” she says, and Dean flushes with embarrassment. “I wasn’t thinking. I should have never even talked to that guy. I’ve been clean a long time.”    
   
“I know,” she answers with a big smile. “I’ve been hearing all about you from the clients. You sound like you’re doing real good. Took you a while to notice me—I couldn’t have packed the car any slower.”   
   
Dean laughs.   “Thanks for keeping an eye on me.”  
   
“So I hear you’re off the market,” Missouri comments and Dean shrugs. “Not so sure about that right now, but I hope so.”    
   
He knows she catches on to what’s wrong; the woman always was way too smart. “Whatever you did, boy, go and apologize.”   
   
Dean huffs. “What if I didn’t do anything wrong?”  
   
She shakes her head and shuts the trunk of the van. “Sometimes it’s not about what you do, Dean—It’s about what you say and how you say it. If you hurt him then you need to own that and try to move on. You can be right and still be lonely.”  
   
Dean’s pretty sure lonely is exactly what he is right now. He heads back to Bobby’s and has a long talk with his sponsor about what happened in the parking lot, and what went on with Cas. Bobby nods and finally comments, “Looks like God was lookin out for you, kid.”  
   
“If God is a bossy little black woman then yeah, he sure was,” Dean laughs. He also spends the night sleeping on Bobby’s sofa, feeling a little too shaken, even after a meeting, to go home alone.   
   
He wakes up to his phone ringing at four in the morning. It’s Sam and that can only mean bad things.   
   
“Dean, Dad’s gone.” His little brother’s voice is tense and shaking over the lines. Dean wakes up Bobby and fills him in on the details before he goes home to pack.   
   
He’s throwing his stuff in the back of his car when he sees the lights on in Cas’ house. He takes a deep breath and goes to knock on the door. When Cas opens it he looks tired and rumpled. He stares at Dean before saying coldly, “You didn’t come home last night.”  
   
“I slept over at Bobby’s—I had a rough day.” Dean hesitates, uncomfortable with putting himself out there with no way of knowing what Cas’ reaction will be. “I want to apologize to you for how I said what I said when we fought. I was rude and I’m sorry. I need to talk to you about it more and I’m hoping we can work this out. I love you, Cas. But I have to go now—my dad just died this morning and Sam needs me. I didn’t want to leave without talking to you first, wanted you to know I’m going to be gone a couple of days at least.”  
   
“I’m so sorry,” Cas whispers, and reaches out to Dean, who almost moans in relief and steps forward to hug his boyfriend. “Is it alright if I call you?” Dean asks.   
   
Cas nods and mutters into Dean’s shirt. “I miss you, I love you. I’m so sorry.”   
   
It’s tempting to just go inside with Cas and shut the door, so he doesn’t have to deal with all this. Instead Dean kisses him long and deep, holding Cas tightly and trying to pour everything he feels for the other man into that contact. “I have to go. Sam’s waiting on me.”  
   
Cas clings to him for a second before stepping away. “Call me when you get there. Call me whenever you want—I’ll be thinking of you. I love you. Be safe.”  
   
Cas watches as Dean pulls away, and Dean keeps looking back at him until he pulls out of sight. He’s done enough work on himself by now to know that they really haven’t resolved anything, but unlike Dean’s other relationships, it looks like they’re going to try—and it’s all he needs to feel better.   
   
Halfway through the two hour trip Dean gets a text message from Cas telling him that he loves him, and asking Dean to let him know the funeral details so that Cas and Jesse can attend. He pulls over for gas and texts back that they don’t have to do that. Cas’ response is short and probably the most meaningful thing Dean has ever read.   
   
 ** _Yes we do. You’re family. Now shut up and drive._**  
   
****  
Dean just strolls into his brother’s apartment when he gets there—the door’s not locked and Sam knows he is coming. What he sees sitting on the sofa is enough to make him want to turn around and drive right back home.   
   
“What are you doing here?” he sputters.  
   
“Nice to finally meet you, Dean. I’m Jessica.”   
   
His brain just freezes with the shock of it all, and they are still standing there staring at each other when Sam walks around the corner. “Oh hey,” he says. “Have you guys met?”  
   
“Yeah,” Dean chokes.  “A long-ass time ago.”   
   
“Wait, you know each other?” Sam is clearly confused. Jessica bows her head and stays thankfully silent.   
   
“Sammy, do you remember when I was in the hospital that last time, and I would call you, moaning about that bitch of an evil social worker I had?” At Sam’s nod Dean points to Jessica and says, “THAT is the evil bitch of a social worker.”  
   
Sam turns to Jessica who shrugs delicately. “You saw pictures of him,” Sam accuses. “You knew and you didn’t tell me.”  
   
“I couldn’t,” she replies. “You know the drill; he was a client and that information is confidential. He had to tell you—not me.”   
   
“Holy shit,” Sam groans, and Dean busts out laughing. “That’s one way of putting it.”  
   
They show him the guest bedroom and Dean drops off his stuff, stopping long enough to call Cas and let him know he is safe and with Sam. He saves the part about Jessica for another time—mostly because he wants to see Cas’ face when he tells the other man about it. Stuff like that only happens once in a lifetime.   
   
Dean stays what he likes to call ‘comfortably numb’ for most of the next two days. He talks to Bobby and finds a meeting. He calls Cas every spare second he gets, just to hear the other man tell him he loves him. He eats and sleeps and helps with the funeral planning without complaint because Sam is clearly torn up. Dean’s glad for Jessica, who takes responsibility for making sure that Sam is eating and resting and staying focused on the things he needs to do for himself, and not just the burial.   
   
There’s a lot of hugging at the viewing and Dean tries to be comfortable with it. Sam is one thing—that’s his brother and Dean would hug him all night long if that’s what it took—but he doesn’t even know half these people, and the ones he does know are bad news, or at least they were when Dean was introduced to them years ago. It’s hot and he’s uncomfortable in this piece-of-shit suit he has on. Dress functions were never really his thing at the best of time and right now he just wants to go home.   
   
Dean’s creeping off for just two minutes of alone time when he catches sight of Bobby, Cas and Jesse coming in the door of the funeral home. He’s so happy to see them he actually chokes up with relief, and can’t do anything but press his head into Cas’ shoulder and breath for along minute before Bobby steps up to offer a hug of his own.   
   
“Thank you so much for coming,” Dean gushes, and then chuckles at his own shaky voice. Bobby jostles him a bit with his arm and then drags Jesse off to see if Sam needs any more help with the flowers. “Take a minute, kid,” he says. “You look like you could use one.”  
   
“How are you?” Cas asks him as soon as they make it out of the building. Dean takes a deep breath of fresh air and squeezes the other man’s hand tightly. “Shitty.”   
   
They chuckle and Cas hugs him tightly as Dean feels the first tears he has shed over his father’s death creep out from behind his tightly closed eyes. “I don’t want to feel anything about this—I want to be angry. It shouldn’t hurt this bad.”   
   
“I’m sorry,” Cas whispers “I wish I could take it away.” That’s all Dean needs, it seems, to finally let it go—he sobs into Cas’ trench coat, clinging to his boyfriend until there’s just nothing left to cry out. When he’s finished he snuffles, embarrassed about the outburst, and Cas drags tissues out of his coat pockets and hands them over so Dean can wipe his face. “You’re like a boy scout, you know that?” Dean mumbles, and Cas gives him a shaky smile as he wipes his own eyes.   
   
“Dean,” Sam calls from the door of the funeral home. “It’s time—I need you.”  
   
Dean keeps a tight hold on Cas’ hand as they enter the room where the service is going to be held. He drags his boyfriend to the front pew with him and refuses to let him go sit in the back. Bobby brings up Jesse, and at Dean’s sharp look slides in next to them. “We shouldn’t be up here, Dean,” Cas whispers. “This is for family.”  
   
“Jessica is here,” Dean points out. “If she’s here then you all are here too—you are my family.”  
   
Dean’s attention wanders off as the pastor starts speaking. He’s more focused on getting through the last few hours of this ordeal sober than whatever people are saying about his dad. John Winchester was a lot of things to a lot of people; it’s sad he never took the chance to be a father to his sons. But only a few people sitting here know the truth and Dean’s not as angry as he used to be. He doesn’t have to ruin their version of his father with the truth. It’s enough that he knows it. It enough that the people sitting right next to him believe. He doesn’t need to world to know he’s right anymore.   
   
 **11\. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.**  
   
“I thought about what you said to me,” Cas comments as they drive the Impala back from where his father had it stored. It took him weeks to track her down and even longer to convince the guy holding her that his dad was dead. “About Jesse and Amelia. You were right about a lot of things. I’m very angry with her about losing Jimmy and I want to punish her. But it’s not my place to do that. I have some work I need to do about that. I spoke to Jesse and he wants to see his mother so I’m working with the lawyer on scheduling supervised visitations for him.”  
   
Dean’s surprised. He had figured that Cas was going to tell him it was none of his business and to butt out. “That’s really good of you, Cas.”  
   
“No, it’s not—I still want to choke her. Don’t get too excited.”   
   
Dean laughs, and Cas smiles before leaning over and pressing a quick kiss to Dean’s cheek. “What was that for?” Dean asks.  
   
“For not pushing me about it. I know I offended you and I’m sorry. I said some really unfair things and it hurt you. I never knew what you were like when you were using, and when I see you all I see is this person I’m in love with. I know about your past but I don’t always remember you actually had to live it.” Cas looks out the window for a while.  
   
“It’s always going to be there, you know,” Dean warns. “It’s a sickness I can treat but I can’t cure. There’s always going to be a chance that one day I’ll make the wrong choices. I need you to understand that. I love my life today; I’d do anything to keep it. I want to be healthy, but the risk is always there.”  
   
Cas nods. “I went to an ALANON meeting when we weren’t talking. I’m going to keep going, I just wanted you to know.”   
   
Dean smiles. “Friends and family of people in recovery, huh? You certainly fit into that group.”   
   
He holds Cas’ hand the rest of the way home.   
   
****  
   
“Alright, God,” Dean mutters as he sits in bed alone one night, looking at his sheet of people he needs to make amends to. His father’s name is the only one left. “I need a little help here. How do I make amends with someone who’s dead?” There’s a roll of thunder outside his window and Dean sighs. “Don’t give me that ‘I told you so’ crap. I wasn’t ready then. I think I’m ready now. I’m just clueless.”   
   
He knows better than to wait for a direct answer, even if he occasionally hopes for a sign from God. Something with neon lights and waving arms would really be helpful. Dean sighs and flops back against his pillows, grabbing his phone before turning off the lights. He taps out a quick message to Cas, even though his boyfriend is right next door. Just a short _going to bed I love you_. He smiles when he gets back _I love you too sleep well_ almost immediately. He and Cas have been spending a lot of time working on their relationship for the past six months. Dean’s been pleased with their progress—he doesn’t feel like he’s stumbling around in the dark with the other man anymore.   
   
He and Cas have worked out boundaries and expectations, and Dean’s proud that he has loosened up enough to actually spend some time with Jesse without Cas. They’ve been putting the Impala back together bit by bit in their spare time. Cas has no interest in it, other than to nod his head and listen intently as Dean shares some childhood stories that could probably actually be pretty traumatic if he spent a lot of time thinking about it. But Jesse is a totally different animal; if Dean thought the kid liked the dirt bike, then the Impala is like love at first sight. It’s turned into a huge motivator for Jesse to do his homework and pay attention in school. It gives him something to bond with Dean about, and for Dean there’s a huge sense of excitement about being able to share this car—which for so long was home and safety and family to him—with someone else who touches her with the respect she deserves.   
   
“You’re going to be finished with her by the time I get back,” Jesse accuses quietly one afternoon in late May.   
   
“What are you talking about?” Dean’s lost, but the kid has been acting a little weird the closer he gets to spending the summer with his mother. Things with the visitation have gone so well that Cas is finally giving in to Jesse’s request for more time. They’re all pretty nervous about it, but Dean is hopeful this will set things on a path where everyone can at least agree on where they’re going. Amelia’s been up to visit a few times, and her relationship with Cas is probably always going to be strained and painful. But both of them love Jesse so much they’ve been trying to work past it in his best interests.   
   
So for now, Jesse spends the school year with Dean and Cas, and goes home with his mother over the summer. Amelia isn’t asking for more and Cas sure isn’t offering, but it’s a solid start.  
   
“The Impala,” Jesse says. “You’ll have her up and running when I come back for school in the fall.”   
   
Dean hadn’t really thought about it much but he guesses that Jesse is right. There’s only about a few more weeks of repairs to do and she’ll be road worthy. But maybe that’s not really what the kid’s asking about.  “I could I guess—if I wanted to,” Dean ventures. “But I’m going to miss you being my wing man. It doesn’t seem as fun without you here. Maybe I’ll wait and we can finish her in the fall.”  
   
Jesse hesitates before answering, and Dean can see the spark of excitement in his eyes. “That’s like, three months from now. You’d really wait that long just for me to come back?”  
   
“Why not?” Dean shrugs. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to get my hands on this car—three more months is no big deal. Besides, it will give me something to look forward to.”   
   
Jesse hugs him then, in his enthusiasm. Dean squeezes him back tightly and smiles with the memory of the times Sam hugged him the same way.   
   
*****  
   
Cas is waving an envelope in front of him the next morning over breakfast and Dean swallows hard, remembering the last time this happened. The smile on his boyfriends face is finally enough to reassure him that it’s nothing bad this time. 

   
“So when were you going to tell me that Sam and Jessica were getting married?” Cas laughs and Dean chokes on his coffee.   
   
“I guess the same time I found out about it,” he blurts. Cas makes an _oh shit_ face while Dean picks up his cell phone and dials his brother. Sam picks up on the third ring sounding cheerful and happy, until Dean says accusingly, “I get you wanting to get married without me, but how did you think you could pull off inviting my boyfriend without me finding out about it?”   
   
“What the fuck are you talking about, Dean?” Sam says, and when Dean starts reading the invitation to his brother over the phone Sam groans loudly and says, “Hold on, hold on…”  
   
Dean listens as Sam has a frantic conversation with Jessica, who upon hearing that the invitations had gone out already starts shrieking like a banshee in the background. Sam gets back on the phone sounding flustered as he reports, “Those things were not supposed to go out until three weeks from now. I don’t know why they got sent out early—I promise you, Jess is threatening the wedding planner with homicide right now.”  
   
“This still doesn’t explain to me why Cas has one and I don’t,” Dean gripes.  
   
“You don’t need one, dipshit,” Sam snarls. “Because I was going to call you tonight and ask you to be my best man.”   
   
Cas smiles down into his bowl of cereal as Dean gasps like a fish out of water, before stuttering, “Your best man? Me?”   
   
“Dude,” Sam huffs. “Who else?”  
   
“Yeah,” Dean shrugs. “I’m in.” He spends the next hour on the phone with his brother and his soon-to-be sister-in-law working out details and plans and what color tux he needs to rent. When it starts to get too complicated Cas reaches over and slips the phone from Dean’s hand, saying gently to him, “Go reheat your coffee; I can handle it from here.”   
   
Dean does just that and finishes off his toast while the love of his life argues about the benefits of cummerbunds versus vests. One of Cas’ strengths is organization and Dean gets a little thrill from watching him work. After about another ten minutes Dean is bored and Cas looks frustrated, so he slips into the chair in the living room across from where Cas is sitting on the couch and starts to slowly unbutton his over-shirt. Cas gives him a dirty look of amusement, but keeps on talking as though Dean’s not even in the room.   
   
Dean takes the over-shirt off and throws it at him. He tugs up his t-shirt and rubs a hand over his stomach and up to his chest, watching as Cas licks his lips and struggles to follow where Jessica is going about flower arrangements and seating. Dean finally just takes the shirt off totally, since it’s not enough to actually throw Cas off the track of the conversation. He brushes over both his nipples, slowly stopping to roll one between his fingers when Cas gasps and shifts in his seat. Just to up the ante Dean slides down lower in the chair and starts to unbutton his jeans.   
   
Cas watches him the whole time, and what was supposed to be a joke is quickly turning into something much deeper, much hotter than that. Dean manages to get the buttons undone with shaky hands—by now he’s pretty certain that Cas is only saying, “Uh huh,” even when he clearly has no idea what they are talking about on the other end of the phone. Dean shoves his jeans and underwear down his thighs, and only has time for two or three strokes of his achingly hard dick before Cas blurts loudly into the phone, “I’m sorry, I have to go fuck your brother,” before hanging up and dropping the phone on his couch.  
   
“Holy shit, Cas!” Dean gasps. “Did you really have to tell them that?”  
   
“You,” Cas says, pointing at Dean. “Upstairs, clothing off, condoms, now!” He stalks to the stairs and Dean jumps up to follow, only to trip over his jean clad legs and fall flat on his face, groaning in pain and embarrassment.   
   
“Serves you right,” Cas chuckles. “Tease!”  
   
Dean laughs as he pushes himself up off the floor to yank his pants back up and race up the stairs after his lover. Cas is still laughing as Dean tackles him into the bed and kisses him breathless.   
   
He and Cas have been together a long time compared to his other half-assed relationships. Dean’s thrilled that he still finds the other man as captivating, compelling, and exciting as he did when they first met. “I love you,” He laughs into Cas’ mouth and smiles as the other man pulls back to stroke down the side of his face gently before answering, “I love you too.”  
   
*****  
   
It’s a hot day in June when Dean finally gives ~~it~~ up and decides to take the direct approach to coming to terms with his father. He kneels down in the freshly cut grass next to where his father was buried and drags out a notebook full of things he needs to say.   
   
“Hey, Dad,” he starts. “I’m supposed to make amends to the people I hurt when I was using and I just never could stop hating you enough when you were alive to do that with you. I missed my chance and I’m sorry. But I have some things that I need to say to you so I can move on with this whole thing and stop living in the past. I’m not sure if you can hear me, but this is as good as it’s going to get for us right now.”   
   
There’s nothing but silence and Dean flops back in the grass, groaning. “Fuck, this is so stupid. I can’t do this.”  
   
He calls Cas, hoping for a distraction and instead gets, “I told you not to call me until you were finished. There is no way you’re done already—suck it up.” Dean hears the phone click and rolls his eyes—sometimes Cas is a real bitch, and the ALANON meetings he’s going to are really helping him to avoid enabling Dean’s addictive behaviors when they pop up.   
   
Dean’s sometimes shocked that he can be grateful for something and annoyed by it at the same time.   
   
“Fuck it,” he spits as he sits back up and yanks the notebook into his lap. “Let’s just get this shit over with so I can go the hell home.”  
   
“You were a shitty father; I hope to hell you know that. You were never there when we needed you and when you were around you were drunk or high all the time. I never should’ve had to raise my little brother on the road, or put you to bed at night when you were passed out. I should have been able to finish high school; you should have made me finish high school. You gave me drugs, you let me drink, you told me that men don’t cry and you beat the hell out of me when you caught me doing it. You were WRONG. So fucking wrong about everything you ever taught me, and you fucked me up so bad. Then you let me go off and fuck myself up worse, and you still didn’t give a shit about me. That’s the part I don’t get, you know—what was so wrong with me from the fucking day I was born that you couldn’t just love me? That I couldn’t be good enough for you?  
   
“What did I ever fucking do to you? My whole life you treated me like one big disappointment after another unless I was doing exactly what you did. The only times you were good with me was when I was pouring out beers or had a needle in my arm. You kept me sick so you wouldn’t be alone; you held me down so I would drowned with you and fuck I hate you so much for that. I wasted some really good years of my life trying to be what you wanted me to be for nothing!” Dean’s gasping, breathing hard and he’s sure he’s talking too loud. But it’s hot and the middle of the day and no one is around to care. The words pour out like he’s been choking them back his whole life and maybe he has: maybe this is what’s been building and boiling just under the surface of his soul for as long as he can remember.   
   
“Then you fucking lay in the hospital bed and you tell me you’re proud of me and you love me, and you try and take it all back. Like one stupid conversation is going take away a lifetime of bullshit and hurt. I want it to—I want to just forget about the other thirty two fucking years of my life that you hurt me and let it be. But it’s eating me up inside and I don’t want to still be living in your shadow ten years from now. You’re dead and I have to bury you so I can move on.”   
   
Dean folds himself back onto the ground and stares at the clouds rolling by for a long time, before he murmurs, “I stole from you, I lied to you. I broke your nose one night, I poured out your beers sometimes. I sold dope for you and only gave you half of what I made off it. When you would call me for help while I was out there on my own I would just ignore your phone calls and get a little drunker, a little higher. I wanted to forget all about you. I thought that if I got high enough when I looked in the mirror I would stop seeing your face looking back at me but I was wrong. The more I used the more I saw you; the more I became you and that’s my fault not yours. I don’t want to die like you; I don’t want to live like you either. I’m not your clone, I’m not your partner in crime—I’m me and I’m fighting so hard to be a better person than you raised me to be, than you knew how to be. I’m not going to be you anymore.”   
   
The sky is getting dark by the time Dean hears footsteps behind him. He turns and offers a shaky smile as Bobby sits down onto the ground next to him. “Cas send you?”  
   
Bobby grins and nods. “You hadn’t come home yet; He thought you might need some support. How’s it going, kiddo?”  
   
Dean huffs something between a laugh and a sob as he wipes even more tears from his already swollen eyes. “It was never about me was it?  I never got that until today. But he didn’t hate me—he hated himself.”   
   
Dean doesn’t resist when his sponsor tugs him over for a gruff one-armed hug. He blows out a big breath and shakes his head. “Bobby, I wasted so much of my life thinking it was me.”  
   
“We do that sometimes, son,” Bobby shakes him a little. “Now you just have to let it go. Think you can do that now?”   
   
That’s the real issue here Dean realizes: it’s not history that holds him back—Dean needs to believe he can move forward and he will.   
   
“Yeah, Bobby,” he whispers, closing his notebook and getting to his feet. “I’m ready to go on now.”   
   
 **12\. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.**  
  
The church is beautiful—even Dean can admit that at this point.  He strung up enough of the God-forsaken flowers to notice. He’s not sure if he will be able to move his fingers tomorrow but Jessica is happy, and therefore Sam is happy, and therefore Dean is happy. This day is really not about him. He does his job throughout the wedding—standing straight and tall and silent at his brother’s twitching side. He hands the ring over without incident and remembers to not lock his knees.   
   
Dean’s nervous.  He hasn’t been in a church in years, and up until recently in his life he’s had a less-than-stable relationship with the Almighty. Things are looking up, though, and with over two years of solid sobriety under his belt Dean is focusing more of his step work on building a relationship with himself, and with something out there that is bigger than he is. He’s still not sure he’s ready to call it God but Bobby once told him, “Call it your Aunt Petunia if you want, it doesn’t matter. Just believe.”   
   
Just believing can be hard sometimes, but Dean’s getting there a little bit at a time.   
   
He grins hugely as his sasquatch of a brother tips down to kiss his bride. Then he escorts one of Jessica’s three hundred brides maids out of the church and over to the reception area. She’s a pretty girl who squeezes his arm a little too tight as he starts to step away. Dean snorts to himself, thinking that a few years ago Sam would have probably caught them having sex in the pews later. But Dean only has eyes for one person in this whole place now.   
   
Cas slips up beside him quietly and pulls him in for a kiss. “Jealous?” Dean teases, and then chuckles at his boyfriend’s dark look. “You don’t have any reason to be, you know.”  
   
“I know,” Cas whispers. “But staking a clear claim never hurt anyone.”   
   
Dean rolls his eyes. He stifles a laugh when he sees the look of disappointment on the bridesmaid’s face. Maybe Cas is right about clear messages.   
   
The music is tolerable and the evening air is crisp and comfortable. They stuff down the horribly over-priced catered food and spend much of the evening chatting with Jessica’s parents. Dean can’t help but flinch when the staff starts passing out glasses for the toast. Someone has to speak for Sam and there’s no-one else here. Dean’s been wallowing in anxiety about it for weeks now and still doesn’t have a plan for what the hell he’s going to say. There are a few looks of confusion when people raise their glasses after Jessica’s parents speak. But Dean’s on his feet before things can get too rowdy.   
   
“I’m Sam’s brother, Dean. First off I would like to thank Jessica for using apple cider instead of champagne. I’m an alcoholic and she’s gone out of her way to make me feel comfortable. So please don’t start any rumors about her being pregnant—the lack of alcohol is all my fault.” There’s a burst of nervous laughter from around the room.  
   
“My brother is a really good man,” Dean announces. “He turned out that way pretty much on his own. I love him very much. Sam and I have had some really rough spots and I’m pretty sure they have all been my fault. I’m grateful to be here and really honored to be his best man. He’s loyal and kind and smart, my little brother. He always watches out for the people he loves and Jessica is really lucky to have him—so am I. I’m not sure I ever took the time to appreciate all the ways he hung in there with me, when it would have been easier for him to walk away. So I want to do that now. Thanks for sticking with me, Sammy. You really make me proud to call you my brother.” They toast and Dean slides back into his chair with shaking hands and sweaty palms.   
   
“I’m really proud of you too, Dean,” Sam shouts, loud enough for the whole room to hear, and Dean’s so happy that he managed not to fuck up the reception that his memory over everything leading up to the cake will always be blurry.    
   
The cake he remembers though—It was unbelievably good and Jessica gave him two slices. Holding Cas tight while they slid around the dance floor was pretty awesome too. Dean’s never danced before.   
   
He and Cas hold hands as they stroll to their car after the reception winds down, and they made sure everyone was getting home safely and the caterers have cleaned everything up. “It was a really nice wedding,” Cas whispers and Dean laughs. “Promise me we never have to do that.”  
   
“Um, no,” Cas chuckles. “I think we can skip the pomp and circumstance thank you very much.”  
   
“I love you,” Dean breathes as they slip into the car and get ready to head for home.    
   
“I love you, too,” Cas smiles.  
   
*****  
   
“Can we have a serious discussion?” Cas blurts out one night towards the end of the summer. Dean raises an eyebrow in concern but nods his head.  
   
“Amelia and I have been talking.” Cas still can’t quite keep the sour tone out of his voice when he says her name, but he’s been working hard on it. “Jesse is having a really good time with her and she was hoping to be able to extend her visit.”  
   
“How?” Dean’s confused. “Jesse has to be back here to start school at the end of August.” There’s a moment where Dean is scared shitless that Cas is going to tell him he’s decided to let Jesse move down there to live with his mom. Even though it might be good for the kid, Jesse is a part of this family and Dean loves him. He doesn’t want to lose that connection.  
   
“She wants to move here,” Cas explains.   
   
Dean blinks “How do you feel about that, Cas?”  
   
Cas shrugs and scoots closer to Dean to slip his fingers around Dean’s hand and squeeze. “I’m nervous—but it would make a lot of things easier. I wouldn’t be worried about not getting to see Jesse if he decides to live with his mother. I’d be close by if something happened. He wouldn’t feel like he had to choose one of us.”   
   
“She can move up here?” Dean’s curious.   
   
“She works as a book editor, so her job is pretty flexible. It wouldn’t be too much trouble.” Cas explains. “She would have to find a place to live up here somewhere in town or something, and that could take a while but I think it might be workable.”  
   
Dean pulls his boyfriend in for a hug and holds Cas gently until he feels the tension start to bleed away. He smiles into Cas’ hair before commenting, “I was going to ask you to move in with me tonight.”  
   
Cas shoots away from Dean like he suddenly caught fire. “You were what?”  
   
“I was going to ask you and Jesse to move in with me,” Dean repeats slowly. “I love you, and I love Jesse, and I want us to be a family. I know you’re right next-door and everything, but I’m tired of going to bed without you—I want to be with you. I want to really be with you.”   
   
Cas blinks and Dean bites down on the inside of his lips in worry. This is a huge thing—a really huge thing that they haven’t talked about. Dean’s been really careful about rushing into things with Cas and their whole relationship has had this warm, slow-brewed effect. He doesn’t want to change that but Dean’s ready for more. He wants more.  
   
“I have to make a phone call,” Cas blurts out, and Dean stares in shocked silence at the other man’s back as he flees outside with his cell phone. Cas is gone a long  time, and Dean manages to close his mouth and pick up from dinner, wash the dishes, and say the serenity prayer like a hundred times.    When Cas comes back into the house he has a smile on his face, and Dean feels the band of tension surrounding his chest start to ease up.  ~~~~  
  
“Everything okay?” he asks.  
   
“Jesse and I would be honored to live with you Dean.” Cas grins brightly and it makes so much more sense now.   
   
 “You called Jesse?”   
   
“Of course I did,” Cas snorts. “I had to ask him what he wanted to do. We’re kind of a package deal.”   
   
Dean chuckles and then laughs outright at the joy that bubbles up inside his chest. He has Cas picked up and is swinging him around the entryway so fast that the other man just clings to him and squeals. Dean has a life, a home, a family. He’s not a ghost anymore.   
   
****  
   
Bobby stalks across the room to him one night at a packed meeting and announces “Dean, this is Adam; Adam, this is Dean. You two should get to know each other,” before turning on his heels and walking away.   
   
Dean takes a look at the young guy in front of him and figures he can’t be more than twenty at most. “Hi,” he offers, since the guy looks a little green.   
   
“Bobby says you would make a good sponsor,” Adam stutters out in response.   
   
Dean’s floored. “I’m not nearly as good as Bobby—you should ask him.”  
   
Adam shrugs and wipes his face before grinding out “I did—and he says he only takes on one sponsee at a time, usually, and that his current one is keeping him really busy. He said I should ask you.”  
   
“So are you?” Dean chuckles, remembering when he was in this situation and how much he’d thought he might die when he approached Bobby.  
   
“Am I what?” ~~~~  
  
“Asking me?” Dean prompts.   
   
Adam looks at him for a long minute before shuffling his feet and clenching his hands. “I need a sponsor.”  
   
“I got that part,” Dean agrees. “I’m still a little confused about the whole ‘if you’re asking me’ portion of this conversation.”  
   
Something defiant and bright flares up behind Adam’s beaten down eyes as he snaps, “Are you always this hard to deal with?”  
   
Dean laughs. “That sponsee Bobby was talking about, that keeps him so busy? That’s me, man. Take it or leave it—It’s up to you.”   
   
Adam actually smiles a little before he swallows the last of his pride and says, “Will you help me?” Dean remembers what it felt like to do that so vividly. “Sure, man—as long as you’re willing to help yourself.”  
   
*****  
   
They move Amelia into Cas’ house and let her rent it for cheap. She’s grateful, and Dean is quick to introduce her to the recovery community in the area. She’s motivated; she gets a sponsor, and even though they don’t really go to the meetings together Dean crosses paths with her enough to know she’s trying to stay straight.   
   
Jesse goes back and forth between their two houses, and Dean chuckles when he overhears the kid get into a detailed discussion of his tangled family dynamics with one of the guys from the garage one day when they are putting the last of the parts on the Impala. Jesse finally waves his hand at Dean, saying, “No, no, we don’t all live together: I have two houses, one mother, two dads, and then Uncle Sam and Aunt Jessica. It’s really not that complicated.”   
   
Dean decides Jesse is right—He tells Cas as much when they’re cuddled in bed together that night. Cas laughs.   
   
“I like that kid,” Dean chuckles.   
   
“He likes you.” Cas grins as he sets aside the book he was reading, and combs his fingers through Dean’s hair.   
   
Dean shifts, and something must show on his face because Cas asks, “What is it?”  
   
“I like me, too,” Dean whispers, and at Cas’ odd look adds, “I don’t think I have ever really liked myself before. I’m happy with who I am, now.”  
   
Cas moves down in the bed and presses a kiss to the top of Dean’s head as he pulls him close. “I love who you are.”  
   
“I love you, too, Cas.”   
   
   
 


End file.
